


Anything That Talks

by Well_Then_Extract



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, F/F, F/M, Fire Powers, I meant for this to be short but here we are, I raise you lesbian heather, I'm claiming heather for the gays, M/M, My version of Season 3, Swearing, actually most characters don't make an appearence until the end, all heathers are lesbians you cannot change my mind, implied bi steve, jonathan just is non existant because i say so, so don't get your hopes up, so that's why i tagged it for violence, there's a lot of blood and violence and arson and killing things, there's only so many synonyms for 'weird fucking monster' leave me alone, troy is so fucking stupid, will has fire powers, will is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-03-09 09:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18914491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Well_Then_Extract/pseuds/Well_Then_Extract
Summary: Can you think of anything that talks other than a person?“Will saw it when it was his mother, standing in the kitchen above the stove with black blood dripping from its mouth, he saw it as Mike, jet bloodied knees and arms too long, and he saw it now as himself, grabbing his partner in this mess by the collar and leaking obsidian onto the crumbled tile floor. Will wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing, he should know to recognize the doppelganger by now, should know not to be deceived, but Troy was frozen, letting the copy snarl into his ear. So Will did the only thing he knew to do, he let go.”In which an idiot and a hot mess with fire powers share one brain cell to defeat a shapeshifter.





	1. There's really just one thing we have in common, neither of us will be missed

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfic title from Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches  
> Chapter title from Saint Bernard by Lincoln  
> What's up?  
> Instead of studying for finals I was writing this because I'm a cool kid and cool kids don't need school!  
> (So far it's worked out but my two hardest finals are today so... we'll see)  
> I was so excited to write this like I haven't been excited to write about anything in forever but this fanfic raised my writing from the dead and I'm so excited to publish it like the best part is publishing it for me.  
> This chapter is wayyy longer than I expected it to be, but when don't I write superfluously? I wrote this really fast because I was so excited. Y'all this is gonna be so cool I'm so pyshced.  
> Fun drinking game: Take a shot (of water! drink water you loser!) every time Will calls Troy stupid in some way  
> Troy is a gay disaster and I love it when one person helps the other with an injury or something in ships, like it's the cutest and expect more of it.  
> My tumblr is burgundy-burgers, feel free to message me and feel free to leave comments and kudos!  
> Enjoy!

The first time it happened, Will lit a forest on fire.

Well, not a whole forest. Just a section. When the fire department got there and asked what could have possibly done that much damage, Will’s mother lied and said she dropped her cigarette. What had really happened was that Will had gotten a little too upset over his mom insisting he not stay home by himself. He had stayed home alone before, he had shouted at her, and he could do it again. “ _I’m not a baby_!” he recalled yelling before the flames poured from his palms.

The fire fled to the grass and caught in the dry trees behind him as he and his mother watched in horror.

After the fire department, his friends were the first people he called. They stood around the rubble, looking between the smoldering skeletons of trees and the small boy who had caused it.

They couldn’t believe that Will could have done that.

They weren’t quite sure why Will had these new abilities considering  having pyrokinesis seems counterproductive since the entirety of the Upside Down is hurt by fire. He supposed that the Mindflayer wanted him to be able to keep fire away from it, and it couldn’t possibly see a future where Will was no longer under its control. Perhaps it was unintentional, maybe it was the air in the Upside Down, maybe the cold touch of a shadow left a lasting mark on Will.

Whatever the reason, Will found himself struggling with these new abilities from then on. He wondered how long they’d been there, beneath the surface waiting for an emotional moment to leap from his skin. He had to be careful now, getting too angry would ultimately result in another fire.

Will had already set his bed, the shower curtain, the couch, and the carpet on fire unintentionally, and he hadn’t even bothered trying to light things on fire intentionally yet. The mechanics of this strange new power didn’t make any sense and Will was definitely struggling to figure out how they worked.

So, he had enough problems before everything else fell apart.

* * *

 

Will first saw one when it was his mother.

He had gotten home from the second to last day of school, he heard a clang from the kitchen and went in, his mom wasn’t supposed to be home yet. When he walked into the room, he saw his mother, pitch black liquid dripping from her open mouth, leaning over the sink. It looked just like her aside from the black blood flowing from her open mouth. She was even wearing her work uniform, her hair falling down from a rushed ponytail. When she turned around, her face was falling apart, revealing red flesh underneath and gaping cuts leaking black blood across her front side. She couldn’t get a greeting out before Will screamed and torched the kitchen. 

What had looked like his mother shrieked and transformed into a flaming red monster, blood flowing from pitch black veins as it burned. Will watched, unable to move, as it writhed and finally died on the floor.

Will was in shock as he looked at the monster he had never seen before. His stomach sank with terror. It had looked like his mom. If it hadn’t been bleeding, how long would it have taken for Will to realize it wasn't his mom? How many of these things were out there, hiding in plain sight?

Will shakily dragged the creature’s body and burned it on the lawn, holding an expired fire extinguisher to it just in case. When his mom came home from work, for real this time, he didn’t mention it. He said he had gotten frustrated and went off by accident, she believed him. 

Will sat awake in his bed that night, debating calling his friends and telling them what happened.

No, he decided he wouldn’t.

He’d put them through so much already, and they were only worse for it. Will didn’t want them to have to go through this, this whole shapeshifter business. He didn’t know how dangerous it could be or what they would get involved in. If he could avoid his friends having a role in this he would at any cost. Will was forced into this, the paranormal experiences of Hawkins followed Will around like a shadow. Will couldn’t avoid it, but his friends could. Sure, they might be able to help but Will saw what these last few years had done to them and it wasn’t worth it, it couldn’t be. He couldn’t ask his friends to throw themselves in harm’s way for him again. They deserved a relaxing summer, and Will would try his best to give that to them.

So Will rolled over in his bed, facing away from the walkie talkie on his dresser. 

He tried to sleep, but images of his mother with pitch black blood staining her clothes and pale skin quickly turning an angry red kept Will awake. He swore he heard a scuffle outside his window, but refused to look outside to check. 

* * *

 

Will didn’t see or didn’t notice, another one of those creatures for another few weeks. When he did, it was smaller, in what he assumed to be its real form, and outside the still charred woods in his backyard. He followed it, sparks flaring from his fingers, into the forest. It didn’t notice, the red scaley creature scurried unbothered through burned trunks, crawling on its lizard-like legs.

It looked somewhat like the demodogs, but red with visible black veins and a large mouth taking up most of its face. There were black spikes running along its spine and scaly tail and some were folded on loose skin behind its head. He guessed that the spikes would raise when it was scared or attacking. it was terribly skinny and its spine popped out against its skin. 

Will tiptoed along behind it quietly, following it closely but carefully. They both went deeper and deeper into the forest and Will was beginning to worry the creature had caught on and was just leading him in circles. But eventually they walked up to a backyard behind a huge house, and Will was struck with a pang of familiarity. This was Steve’s house. Instantly, Will was worried for him, and he ran to the house but stopped at the patio when he saw Troy standing on the picnic table.

He stood on the picnic table with a shovel, swinging it randomly at those red monsters that were surrounding him. There was a horde of them, most dead now, surrounding the patio around the table or sinking in the pool. Three lunged at him, including the one Will had been tailing. Troy hit one with the shovel, kicked the other, but missed the third and it sank its claws into his shoulder. Troy hissed and hit it with the shovel, and when it fell from his shoulder and landed on the table again he hit it again, making it fly off the table and into a lawn chair, which folded up around the beast on impact. The one he had kicked away was back and Troy swung at it, hitting it off onto the patio harshly.

Troy sighed, running a hand over his face and through his hair (Will was sure he’d seen Steve do that at some point too), and looked around at the bodies of monsters he had killed.

“Hey!” Will shouted, and Troy jumped, holding the shovel upright.

“Will Byers?” He gawked.

“I didn’t mean to-”

“Duck!” Troy exclaimed, and Will listened, ducking down just as one of the crimson monsters flew over his head, screeching and jumping at Troy.

Troy hit it with the shovel clumsily just inches from his face. It soared across the yard and fell into the pool, quickly sinking to the bottom.

“What the hell?” he asked loudly. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Will looked around, shrugged.

“I was following one of those… uh, one of those-”

“Those little red shits?”

“Yeah, yeah. It just led me here”

Troy huffed, and looked around from his spot atop the picnic table.

“How long have you been here?” Will asked, daring to take a step closer.

"How long have I been at my house?"

"No! Outside with these things!"

“Oh, I don’t know, I came out here to go swimming but then one of those… those things showed up and then more and more kept coming so I grabbed the first thing I saw and I just- I just started swinging.”

Will nodded, kicking the black bloodied body of one aside so he could step closer. The action made Troy jump again, clutching the shovel tighter.

It was at this point that Will noticed Troy’s appearance.

He was wearing swim trunks with a shirt over it which bore the faded name of some town Will had never heard of and flip flops. There was a deep gash on his face that was leaking bright red blood down his face. A similar cut tore down his forearm, and claw marks on his shoulder also oozed blood. His legs seemed scratched up as well, mostly below the knee as if the creatures were climbing the table and scratched up his leg to try to reach him.

“You, uh, your face is-”

“Is it bleeding?” Troy asked, eyes wide.

He brought his hand to his cheek and it came away stained red.

“How did you know about these things?” Troy asked, wiping the blood off on his shirt.

Will took a few more steps forward, stepping over more of the motionless of the animals. He decided to be honest with Troy, seeing no reason for either of them to be hostile in this situation. Will explained what happened, how one had pretended to be his mom, how he had gotten rid of it.

(Will had stumbled during that part, he felt the sudden desire to hide his abilities from Troy as if Troy would judge him or would be afraid of him or tattle on him. None of these would be out of character for Troy.)

Troy listened intently the whole time, holding his shovel in preparation and eyes darting around to spot incoming danger. He was still jumpy, and Will couldn’t blame him, to the point when Will waved his hands around while he talked Troy flinched.

When Will finished, Troy looked around, and Will noticed a stag standing off to the side of them. Instead of feeling in awe of nature and the animal in front of them, Will felt his hair stand on end and a shiver run down his spine. Will saw Troy readjust the shovel, seeing it too. They locked eyes, and the same chill of fear went through them both.

“Let’s go inside” Troy murmured, eyeing the deer.

Will nodded and followed Troy inside through a glass door.

The sky had clouded over, making the house dim and eerie. Troy turned on a light, illuminating a grand living and dining room. In the back of his mind, Will was impressed and annoyed at how much money the Harringtons had.

“Listen, Will, these things, they’re shapeshifters right?” Troy glanced out the screen door, the deer was closer now. “Well, I first found out about them because one of them was pretending to be Steve. God, I don’t know how long it had been looking like him, acting like him, living his life.. but anyway I noticed when Steve couldn’t remember the trip we had taken when he was twelve and I was seven. I remembered it better than he did, which didn’t make any sense. He's always had the better memory and it wasn't that long ago.

“When we were outside I pushed him into the pool because, y’ know, that’s what brothers do. He sank right to the bottom, and couldn’t get above the surface. Steve is a great swimmer, but I thought maybe he hadn’t expected it and was in trouble. So I dove in to help him and… and his lips were black and black was pouring out of his mouth and leaking into the water. I freaked out. It changed in its final moments, or at least it changed somewhat. His skin got all red and full of black veins, his mouth taking up more and more of his face.” Troy paused, looking outside at the deer and then back at Will, eyes wide and lip shaky. “I realized that wasn’t really Steve, and that those things can’t swim, but I don’t… I don’t know where the real Steve is. He hasn’t been home in these past few days since I killed that thing.”

Will was quiet, running through every interaction he had been through with Steve in the past few weeks, he had seemed normal. He felt sorry for Troy, really. Will had only interacted with the clone of his mother once, he thought it must be awful to trust one of those things completely as the person it was copying and not realize it was secretly a fake all along.

“I’m sorry,” Will said, and he meant it.

Troy nodded, staring at the floor now. He sighed, then looked back up at Will.

“How can I be sure it’s you?” he asked.

Will rolled his eyes even though it was a perfectly reasonable concern to have. “You pissed your pants in the seventh grade. You fell off the bleachers and broke your nose in fourth, my dog once stole your backpack-”

“That was you?”

Will frowned at Troy.

“Is that enough?”

“I suppose,” he said, smiling softly. “Damn I didn’t know that was your dog that took my stuff. I thought it some stupid kid”

Will shrugged, smiling too. “It never came up, I didn’t see the need to tell you”

Troy opened his mouth to say something back, but at that moment the stag burst through the glass door antlers first, shooting sharp shards of glass all over the room, Will and Troy both screamed and tried to dodge the damage. Will rolled onto the ground, hands covering his head feebly as glass fell all around him. He peaked through his cut up fingers and saw the terrifying animal, heaving with inky blood dripping off its fur. It eyed Troy, and took a few steps back, ready to charge again. Troy was leaning against a chair, petrified, watching as it kicked its feet in preparation to run at him. Will looked in between him and the stag and knew what he had to do. Will let his barriers fall and the flames rushed out, latching onto the faux deer and burning it before it could kill Troy. It let out an inhuman piercing scream as it went up in flames. Troy scooted back into the chair, forgetting it was there, sending it toppling over with a loud bang before crawling under the table. The deer had stopped screaming, fur disappearing and red scales taking its place. It was still smoking, Will was pretty sure it was dead. Troy looked at Will, hands still clasped around his head, face covered in small cuts from the glass, and he started screaming.

* * *

 

“Shut up shut up shut up _shut up_!” Will shouted, waving his hand at Troy.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God oh fuck” Troy muttered, looking at the half reptile half deer burnt monstrosity on the floor.

Will shifted and leaned against the back of the couch, shards of glass crunching as he moved.

“Why do they hate you so much? What did you do to them?” Will asked, a little louder than usual. He blamed the fact that a _fucking_ deer just tried to kill him.

“I have no idea, I have no idea,” Troy said, running both of his hands through his hair.

“Are you repeating yourself because you’re panicking or because you have a concussion?” Will asked, squinting at Troy.

“I don’t know, I don’t know” Troy shook his head, “I don’t know”

“God, well it’s already annoying”

There was a beat of silence, then Troy started yelling again.

“What the hell was that? What the _hell_   was _that_?”

“I thought you’d be used to it, all those tiny ones came after you”

“Yeah but this one was actually scary. I thought maybe those other ones were only attacking me because I was outside, but this one sought me out and it- _God_ it made eye contact with me!” Troy turned to Will frantically, cheek still bleeding.

Will took a deep breath, trying to slow his heart rate. He could feel blood dripping down his hands.

“And your fire thing! What was that? What the fuck dude? What are you?” Troy was waving his hands around like a lunatic, shoulders tensed up and eyes the size of saucers.

Vaguely, Will wondered if he ever looked this shook up after one of these paranormal experiences happened. He hoped not, Troy looked like an idiot.

(Troy _is_ an idiot.)

“It’s… it's kind of a long story” Will said quietly.

Troy looked at Will and threw his hands out. “I’ve got time”

“It’s kind of personal”

“Who am I gonna tell?”

Will narrowed his eyes at Troy.

“Okay, that’s fair. But still, you just shot fire out of your _hands_ at a deer that was trying to kill us, I feel like I should get an explanation.”

Will sighed, putting his face in his hands and groaning.

“Weird noises don’t count as an explanation, just so you know.”

There was another pause, then Will lifted his head and locked eyes with Troy.

“All I’m going to say is this, you remember November seventh grade?”

“How could I not?”

“I didn’t really get lost in the woods” Will stood up and brushed debris off himself, then walked over to Troy. “C’ mon, we gotta clean this up. Or at the very least get your face to stop bleeding so much."

Troy nodded, crawling out from under the table and taking Will’s outstretched hand to help him up.

* * *

 

“Ow, motherfucker,”

“It’s not even that bad dumbass." 

Troy was sitting on the counter in the bathroom as Will prodded his cheek with a hydrogen peroxide drenched cotton ball. Will poked at the middle of the cut, and Troy flinched back so hard he ran into the mirror.

“Ow! God, you’re doing that on purpose!”

“I’m not doing anything! Listen you gotta do this or else you’ll get an infection and you’ll die!” Will shouted at him, voice ringing through the small space.

Troy glared at Will, then inched forward again, letting Will continue disinfecting Troy’s cut. Will had already finished fixing up Troy’s shoulder, arm, and right knee, and they were running out of bandaids. They hadn’t even gotten to Will’s hands yet. Troy kept wincing even though Will had told him time and time again to stop.

“I can’t help it! It hurts!”

“It would have hurt more if that deer had stabbed you.”

“Shut up.”

Will had finished cleaning the wound up and then started applying Neosporin and layering bandaids on top of it. Troy watched Will’s fingers touch his face, occasionally glancing up at Will before looking back down. Will noticed that his pupils looked like they took up his whole eye, and it didn’t help that they were almost the same color. Troy’s face was red, really red, Will figured it was reacting to the huge gash or to the hydrogen peroxide. Will stepped back and looked over Troy, nodding.

“Alright, I think we did the best we could.”

Troy jumped off the counter and looked at his reflection in the mirror, nodding.

“Okay… yeah, it looks great thank you” Troy turned around to face Will, leaning against the counter.

“No problem, now move I need the bandaids.”

While Will patched his sliced hands up, Troy stared at him.

Will rolled his eyes, this suspicion was completely unwarranted now. Will had just saved his life, Troy had no reason to be staring at Will all wary like he was.

“See? Red blood, that’s how you can tell” he snapped.

“No, it’s not that,”

“Then what?”

Troy squared his shoulders and looked Will in the eye earnestly.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for bullying you and almost killing your friend, I wasn’t really going to hurt anyone, I just wanted to scare them. That doesn’t make it better, I just thought you should know. I was horrible to you and your friends for literally no reason, and I deserved what that one weird girl did to me. I’m just, I’m really sorry Will.” Troy said, not breaking eye contact with Will.

Will nodded, looking away, (the eye contact was getting a little intense).

“Yeah, well, I forgive you. I don’t understand why you did it, but I think that the fact that you realized you were being a dick and you’re trying to improve yourself says a lot about you.”

Troy smiled, shoulders relaxing slightly.

“Now that doesn’t mean we’re suddenly okay, you were really shitty and you have to put actual work into being my friend if that’s what you want.”

Troy nodded.

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t expect to suddenly be best friends or anything, I just wanted to apologize.”

Well, now Will didn’t know what to say. So he got back to work on his hands, using the remainder of the band-aids.

“I should get going, my mom’s gonna be worried,” Will said once he finished, walking out of the bathroom.

“Okay, yeah, totally” Troy followed behind him, watching as Will left through the shattered screen door.

“You gonna be okay out there?”

Will smiled, lifted up his hand, sparks flying off his fingers.

“Trust me, I’ll be just fine” Will looked at the dead stag, surrounded by shattered glass. “That’ll be hard to explain to your parents.”

“Yeah kinda, I’ll just tell them it charged through the window because it had rabies or something. They’ll be mad but I’ll be fine”

Will nodded, kicking the scaly part of the fake deer.

Troy smiled and nodded too, touching his bandaged cheek.

“Alright well, don’t die.”

“Gee, thanks, I’ll try not to.”

Will walked out over the deer corpse and the rest of the shapeshifters in the yard, looking back at Troy briefly.

Apparently, Troy was now entangled in this whole mess with Will. What's weirder is he apologized and seemed to be making an effort to be a nicer person to the point that Will didn't despise being around him. Which is, to say the least, not something Will would have ever expected. 

Will trudged home, he was sort of thankful to have someone else in all this, even if it was just Troy.

* * *

 

Will was laying in bed, drawing to calm himself down. It was raining, the sound of the drops hitting the roof and windows was nearly drowned out by the whirring of his fan. His hair would blow softly across his face when the fan turned his way as he sat with his face in one hand and a pencil in the other.

When he got home his mom fussed over his cuts and he told her he fell in the woods while exploring. She just shook her head and told him to be more careful, not wanting to get in another fight. Will was still pretty freaked out so he stayed in his room and drew until dinner and then hid in his room again after he finished. 

Jane was at her own house with Max, someone she had been spending an increasing amount of time with, so it was just Will and his mom that night since Jonathan had gone to college early. 

Will drew a flower half-heartedly, not really paying attention. He had turned on an old tape of Jonathan's but he wasn't really listening, and he was sure it had played at least twice by now. He perked up when he heard a knock on the door, lazily lifting his gaze to his bedroom door. He could hear the door open but didn’t recognize the person at the door’s voice.

Joyce opened Will’s bedroom door suddenly, looking behind her at the visitor again before turning to Will.

“Uh, there’s a boy from your school here.” She said, holding onto the door.

Will set his sketchbook aside, and got off his bed, puzzled. He had no idea who would show up to his house beside his friends.

Troy stood in Will’s living room, parked on the rug, dripping wet and covered in new scratches.

(The one on his cheek had opened again, and it looked like the cut on his shoulder was too and was leaking through his shirt.)

Troy jumped when he saw Will like he didn’t believe Will would actually be here in his own house. He waved awkwardly, then looked around Will’s house like something would jump out and attack him.

“Do you know him? He looks familiar” she whispered to Will, holding onto his arm like he was in danger.

Will nodded and shook his arm from his mom’s hold. He walked over to Troy, eyeing the bright red scratches on his face and arms.

“What are you doing here?”

Troy looked behind Will at Joyce, eyes huge and watery. Troy was very obviously terrified of Will, his friends, and Will’s family, especially now since Joyce was dating the police chief. Will was somewhat annoyed by this, he thought they were over it (or at least to the point where Troy wasn't scared of his family as much).

“Can we talk? Alone?” He whispered.

Troy was shivering, wet clothes sticking to him, shoes muddy and hair flattened to his forehead.

Will sighed and nodded. He waited for Troy to take off his shoes before leading him into his room, quickly reassuring his mom that everything would be fine. When they got to Will’s room, Troy just stood there, dripping on the carpet right next to the door.

Will didn’t know what to do with him.

He fell backward on the bed, putting his face in his hands.

“Alright, what happened?”

Troy looked Will up and down, and it was at that point that Will remembered he was wearing his pajamas which consisted of old Star Wars shorts and one of Jonathan’s old shirts from a band he’d honestly never listened to.

He felt his cheeks heat up and hugged the shirt down over the shorts in a feeble attempt to look more presentable.

Not that it mattered anyway, Troy had immediately averted his eyes and was staring pointedly at the floor, face tinted pink.

“I uh… I need a place to stay.” He told Will, still not looking at him.

“Uh huh, and why is that?”

“Um, because my family all kinda turned out to be shapeshifters.”

That took Will back.

“You’re kidding.”

“Ah, no, nope, I’m not actually” he laughed humorlessly,“Wish I were, though”

“Troy,” Will reached out to Troy and almost touched his arm before Troy flinched back and finally met Will’s eyes, “tell me what happened.”

Troy took a deep breath.

“Well, my mom and dad came home, at the same time. I thought ‘well hey that’s strange’ but brushed it off. I couldn’t find Diane,” he paused, remembering something, “that’s my sister, I don’t think you know her. Anyway, I couldn’t find her and my parents didn’t know either. My mom went to go make dinner and my dad went and sat in front of the TV as usual.

“Except, he didn’t watch TV, he just sat there and stared at the blank screen. Sign one. My mom used the same knife for the chicken as she used for the vegetables. Sign two. I still couldn’t find my sister, and they couldn’t care less!”

Troy was getting very upset, and Will had no idea what to do. This was the most they had ever spoken to each other, and Troy looked like he might cry.

“I noticed my mom when she cut her finger with the knife, which she _never_ does, and black blood came out. I didn’t say anything, but I kept a close eye on her. I suspected my dad, but I couldn’t prove it.

“I waited until that night, I grabbed my shovel and hid in the garage where their cars should have been. I called her out to me, and when she walked in I hit her in the head. She bled black when she fell to the ground, I knew I didn’t make a mistake. When my ‘dad,’” Troy put air quotes around it now, “heard the noise he stormed out and I hit him too. He fought back, long nails grew back on his hand and he got me a bunch, but I was able to kill that one too.”

Will looked at all the fresh scratches on Troy once more, imagining the scene playing out.

“I found my sister or her double I guess, in the pool. She had either slipped in or dove in trying to save one of the others. I could see black veins popping out on her skin.” Troy exhaled sharply through his nose, rubbing his eyes with his fists like a little kid.

“Anyway, that wouldn’t be so bad but after I had taken care of them all a whole fuck ton of them ambushed me, bigger than the first ones I saw. They broke in through the windows and surrounded me and I barely managed to escape… I lost my shovel and I don’t know where my _real_ family is.”

When Troy was finished, Will patted the spot on the bed next to him. After a moment of hesitation, Troy sat down, soaking wet, tired, and terrified.

“Anyway, that’s why I need a place to stay” Will ignored his urge to yell at Troy for possibly leading the shapeshifters to Will’s house.

“Why me? Why not go to James?”

Troy shook his head, rubbing his eyes again. “I don’t want to get him involved, it’s awful, this thing. I would die before I get my best friend into any of this shit willingly. You… you and I both got this thing dropped on us, we gotta stick together I figure. We can’t just ignore this, so we should deal with it together.”

Will swallowed, realizing that was the same logic he used to justify not telling the party about this new danger.

“You’re right, we don’t really have a choice in this.” Will looked over at Troy and smiled, small and tired. “You can stay here, I’ll get an air mattress and… and uh I can try to find some dry clothes for you while we stick those in the dryer.”

Troy brightened, smiling hopefully at Will. “Really? Thank you so much, really. I appreciate this so much.”

Will nodded and stood up to go get everything he needed.

He was able to dig up some of Jonathan’s old clothes that were still too big for Will but might fit Troy, and was able to get his mom to help him blow up the air mattress.

“Who is that kid?” She asked as they worked.

“Just someone from school, he needs some help.”

Joyce nodded, she didn’t understand but didn’t want to push.

(Will wondered if she thought Troy was dating Will. He was sure she suspected that Will was gay so that wouldn’t be too much of a reach. Still, the thought made Will laugh.)

Finally, Troy’s wet clothes were in the dryer and he was in dry (albeit a little too big) new ones. They had been in a tense silence as they put his clothes in the dryer and made the bed, and the silence was finally broken. Troy was laying on top of the covers on the air mattress, looking at Will as Will slid under the covers on his bed.

“Thanks for letting me stay here” Troy murmured, scooting under the covers and rolling over on his side. “I don’t know what I’d do if you hadn’t” Troy was smiling despite what he had just said.

Will nodded, turning to face Troy. “Yeah, no problem. It’s like you said, I guess we have to stick together in this.”

Admittedly, this felt kinda like a sleepover, Will almost forgot about the impending doom Troy was fleeing.

Troy smiled, looked at Will with all the hope in the world shining in his eyes and his entire face softened. Will dismissed it as Troy being tired, after all, that day had been crazy. Will couldn’t blame Troy for being tired.

Still, it made Will feel weird.

Will sat up and turned off the lamp, revealing tiny plastic stars stuck onto the ceiling.

“Goodnight Troy.”

“Goodnight Will.”

Neither of them went to sleep for a while, listening to the tap of rain against the window, waiting for death to find them. Eventually, Will nodded off listening to the soft snoring of Troy next to him. He supposed it was a little comforting knowing there was someone in the room with him. 

That was the second time in Will's life that he appreciated Troy's company. 


	2. Grab your mother's keys, we're leaving, you always seemed so sure that one day we'd be fightin' in the suburban war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Suburbs- Mr. Little Jeans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh God, this is so long.  
> Originally this was supposed to be two chapters but I fucked up my outline so here we are.  
> I'm very angry because my notes are always long and AO3 just decided to stop working so it erased everything ughhh.  
> I always have funny things to say while I'm writing but I always forget when I get to the notes so I'm big sad. The chapter title is actually okay for once, and I really love that song so that's cool. Listen to it if you want.  
> This chapter is super long (and really gay, happy pride month), so I'll let you get to it.  
> Heather has big lesbian aunt energy and I love her. Also she's a lesbian because no Heather is straight and no I do not take criticism.  
> Billy had 0 lines and 0 rights

That next morning when Will woke up Troy was already awake, gone from the air mattress leaving nothing but crumpled blankets and a dent in the pillow.

Will stretched then swung his legs over the bed. He was pretty sure Troy was somewhere else in the house, but it was also possible he had left before Will woke up. Troy was very jumpy, Will wouldn’t put it past him.

Will found him in the living room, sitting on the floor and looking out the window. He was holding a mug of what looked like coffee, and the TV was on but muted, obviously forgotten.

“You seem to be right at home,” Will remarked, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“I woke up as your mom was leaving and she asked if I liked coffee and, y’ know I do so I didn’t lie and said yes and she gave me some then started talking about cereal and toast...then she left and I started watching TV and- and here are.” Troy prattled defensively.

Will looked out the window, the curtains were open, and his mom’s car was gone just like he expected. The front door was partially open to just the screen door, letting the morning breeze and the sound of birds float into the living room. Will wasn’t sure where to start. He didn’t want to lead with the grim question of where Troy’s family is or if they’re dead or not.

“Did you eat?”

“Not yet.”

Will squinted at the TV, some bizarre infomercial was playing. “What the hell are you watching?”

“I’m not sure, it used to be Family Feud.”

Will chuckled and sat next to Troy.

“I don’t even know what it’s advertising” Troy admitted as the woman on the TV dropped a plate and looked down at the pieces forlornly in black and white.

“An unbreakable plate, maybe.” Will guessed, avoiding the topic completely.

“Super Glue?” Troy suggested as the woman tried to clean up the shards but cut her fingers on the sharp edges.

“Uh, gloves maybe?”

“Band-aids, but ones with cool designs on them.”

The TV scene flooded with color and the woman gleefully swept up the pieces of porcelain with a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other.

“A broom!” they both exclaimed at the same time.

“This makes absolutely no sense,” Troy complained jokingly, smiling at Will.

Will smiled back, then turned to watch the TV, the morning breeze rustling his hair. It was almost relaxing. He looked again over at Troy, who looked almost calm. Aside from last night right before Troy fell asleep, this was the most relaxed Will had ever seen him. His whole face was soft. Will really couldn’t bring himself to talk about it yet.

At some point Will got up and got them both cereal, making sure to give Troy a bowl without too many chips or dents in it. As they sat there with cereal, watching TV, that sleepover feeling came back to Will and he almost forgot why Troy was there, to begin with. He didn’t think he could put it off any longer, they were almost done with breakfast and they hadn’t mentioned what they were going to do after that.

“So what are we going to do? It’s not like we know why these things are following you and I don’t know about you but I don’t have a plan about where to go from here.” Will said, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled around them.

“I want to try to find my family.” Troy looked straight ahead, still staring at the TV. “I’m pretty sure those things dragged them off somewhere and I want to find them. I’m sure there’s a lot more of them here, impersonating people, just no one can tell. We gotta get them out of here, and I think we can find all the people they’ve stolen while doing it.”

“How do you know your family was taken and not… and not something worse?”

“I don’t, I just have a feeling.”

Will wasn’t really on board with the idea of following Troy’s intuition with no evidence to back it up. Then again, it wasn’t like he had another plan or any other idea.

“Alright, I don’t know what else to do so, we’re gonna go with that. We’ll find your family, find everyone else who’s been replaced, and somehow we’ll drive those monsters out of here.”

Troy nodded, smiling hopefully despite their clear lack of direction and their vague at best plan.

“Do you have any idea where to start?” Will continued.

“I might.”

* * *

 

So that lead Troy and Will to the woods around the public pool where Troy said he saw one in its true crimson form when he was running away from his house. It was still early in the morning and the town was mostly empty so that made it easier for the two boys to stalk around the woods without interference, like someone asking them why they were skulking around in the woods in the morning.

They didn’t have any weapons(besides himself, Will supposed) so Will kind of hoped they wouldn’t find anything. Even if they did, what would they do with it? What would come after that? Will ignored those questions and kept walking, figuring they’d cross that bridge when they got there.

The two of them had gotten to the pool and were standing at the gate, usually closed, which was open this morning.

“One of the lifeguards or some worker probably forgot to close it,” Will explained away, but a shiver of unease went through him.

Troy glanced at Will, then walked into the empty city pool, Will followed, looking around curiously.

It felt like being at the mall when it was closed, like being at school early, like being part of an exclusive club.

This feeling was replaced by dread when Will saw fresh black blood spots on the pavement leading to an open door marked ‘employees only’. Will and Troy shared a quick fearful look before Troy opened the door wide enough to allow them both inside.

The room was dark and damp, the running water of a shower could be heard somewhere. The lights were all off except for one single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling that buzzes and flickers occasionally. The room was painted a soft blue, lockers on both sides of the room and benches right next to them. On one wall was a whiteboard with shifts written in, and piles of pool supplies were crammed above the lockers. The black blood splatters lead into the back of the room which held shower stalls. All the curtains were pulled open, and as Troy and Will walked closer, they saw someone sitting in the last stall in the left corner.

The figure stood and walked out wearing swim trunks, blood flowed like water from a wound on the side of their head.

Will recognized them as Billy, or at least as one of those things pretending to be Billy. He looked at Troy, his hair slick against his head but still curly, and lunged.

Troy and Will barely had time to jump backward and run out the door before Billy reached them. Troy almost fell into the pool as he turned too sharply while trying to run out the gate and Billy was able to grab him by the wrist. The creature revealed its true face, snarling, but kept the rest of its body mirroring Billy, it let its face change into a monstrous mouth full of rows of deadly teeth, rearing back momentarily.

Suddenly Billy was thrown violently into the pool, letting go of Troy’s wrist just in time as he flew into the water.

The beast let out a blood-curdling howl as it drowned in the shimmering teal water. Where Billy was stood a teenage girl, a good foot taller than Troy with curly brown hair pulled into a messy ponytail in a red swimsuit, white gym shorts, red sunglasses, and blue flip flops. She was holding a bright orange spine board and glaring into the water, she whipped her head back up and pointed the board at Troy.

“Who are you!?” she shouted.

Will walked up behind Troy, and put his hands up in surrender when Heather jabbed the board at his face.

“Troy Harrington! I live here and we were-”

“How do I know you’re not one of those things?” She interrupted Troy harshly.

“Oh please, one of those things was just trying to kill me! You can’t seriously be questioning my-” She interrupted Troy again by hitting him with the board into the water.

Troy fell in with a splash as Will ran over to the edge/

 _It’d really suck if he was actually a shapeshifter this whole time and I couldn’t tell_ Will thought as he watched Troy struggle to the surface.

“What about you?” The girl asked, prodding Will with the spine board.

“I’m not a shapeshifter.”

“How can I tell?” Will rolled his eyes and raised his hand, letting a small flame flicker from his index finger.

The girl gasped fearfully and hit Will into the pool too. He landed with a loud splash into the water, coughing and sputtering once he surfaced.

“What the hell!?” Troy barked at the girl once he got himself back above water.

“I just needed to make sure! And that kid shoots fire from his fingers!” She yelled and pointed at Will who was paddling next to Troy.

“Yeah but none of those things can do that!” Will snapped as he swam to the edge of the pool and pulled himself back on land.

“I didn’t know that I just knew it was weird and freaky and can you blame me for being on edge?”

“I guess not…” Will helped Troy out of the pool, offering him a hand as he climbed from the pool onto the cement, “Who are you anyway?”

“I’m Heather, I’m a lifeguard here.” She pointed at the word 'lifeguard’ printed in white bold letters on her swimsuit.

“I’m Will, and you know Troy,” Will said, gesturing to Troy who was wringing out his shirt the best he could. “How do you know about these shapeshifters?”

Heather leaned against the ladder of the pool, resting one elbow on it, casually as if she were telling a simple story and not one about killing monsters. “It was my friend, Margie. She was acting funny and once while visiting me before my shift, which was a chore to get her to do, by the way, she slipped and fell into the pool and drowned. Her skin started turning red and veiny and gross. Then a fox tried to attack my other friend in her car and she hit it by accident and when she looked it was covered in black blood.”

Will nodded, completely understanding the cold fear of realizing some person isn’t a person at all.

“What about you?” Heather asked. “How’d you get mixed up in all this?”

“I’ve… I’ve been ‘mixed up in this’ for a while now. But one of these things was pretending to be my mom recently. As for him, essentially his whole family was actually shapeshifters.”

Heather glanced at Troy, who was standing off to the side dripping wet with his arms crossed.

(Will was soaked too, but Troy seemed more angry about it.)

“I’m sorry about throwing you into the pool, I just wanted to make sure. You scared me with that fire thing, what’s that about?”

Will swallowed, grabbing the bottom of his shirt in his hands and twisting it nervously. Will wasn’t sure how to explain the fire powers thing to someone who hadn’t witnessed October 1984 or November 1983 and unlike Troy, he doubted he could get Heather to drop the subject.

“I uh, like I said I’ve been mixed up in this for a while.” Will settled on.

“What does that mean? Are you a monster or something too? Are you even human?” Heather accused, taking a step back from Will.

Will would be lying if he said that what Heather had just exclaimed at him didn’t sting just a little bit. Or more than a little bit. A lot. Of course, he was human. He was just… he just had been through some unfortunate happenings.

“Of course I’m human! I can swim you saw me!”

“Then why can you do spark things with your hands? I want to know.”

“I’m- um”

“Why is it that you can do that? What’s wrong with you?”

“You’re not from here, are you?” Troy interrupted.

Heather glared around Will at Troy. “No, I’m from Ohio. Why?”

“Will is kinda known for being weird and going through weird shit, but he’s still a person and he’s still on our side. You don’t need to be suspicious of him and he doesn’t need to explain what happened to him to you.” Troy looked at Will briefly, then back at Heather. “He’d never hurt anyone ever on purpose, trust me.”

Will was completely blown away, he couldn’t do anything other than stare at Troy open-mouthed. He didn’t know Troy had that in him.

Heather sighed, shifting on her feet.

“I guess it’s in my best interest to trust you both, it’s better to work with three people on this thing than trying to go in it alone.” 

Then they just stood there, all wary of each other, unsure where to go next.

“Will? Uh, sidebar?” Troy asked, gesturing to the open gate.

“Sure?” Will said, he had no idea what Troy was doing. When did he ever?

“What?” Will hissed when he walked over to Troy.

“Do you think we can trust her?” Troy whispered.

“What? What kind of question is that? She just asked us that same thing!”

“Yeah, but do you think we can?”

Will ran a hand over his face, sighing. “I think it’d be helpful to have another person with us in this.”

“But should it be her?”

“Well, who else would it be? Who else is here, has seen these things, and has been able to defend themselves?”

Troy signed too, rolling his eyes. “I guess you’re right. I just- it’s definitely the time to be skeptical.”

“I understand, but she’s okay.” Will reached out and touched Troy’s shoulder, taking a very big leap. “We should be skeptical you’re right, but we also have to be trusting to any people that can help us. We can’t throw away allies just because we’re scared.”

Troy seemed to loosen under Will’s gentle hand on his arm and nodded. Will was thankful that his impulse decision worked out so well. Troy very easily could have just smacked Will’s hand away and stormed off, leaving Will’s little team of shape-shifting monster fighters one critical person short. It wasn’t even a team until now, just Will and Troy. Just two idiots with fire and a shovel. Then Troy lost the shovel.

Will was getting off track.

“Okay, I guess we should trust her. But trust her with what? What are we doing?”

Will didn’t know, they really hadn’t planned this far. They really hadn’t planned at all.

“I don’t know, we’ll play it by ear. It’ll be fine.”

Troy narrowed his eyes at Will and Will squeezed his arm again. “It’ll be fine.”

Troy sighed and walked back over to Heather.

“Alright, looks like we’re gonna have to stick together.” He said as walked over, Will following him.

“Wow, I’m _so_ glad I passed your little test there.” Heather frowned at them and crossed her arms.

“Shut up” Troy retorted. 

Will glared at Troy, trying to get him to stop being so hostile without saying ‘stop being such a dick’ out loud.

Then they just stood there in a circle, looking at each other.

“Where do we go from here?” Heather asked, reasonably.

“I don’t know, we didn’t plan this far,” Troy admitted, then looked down at his soaked clothes. “I guess we should go back to Will’s so we’re not in wet clothes all day?”

“Shouldn’t you go to your own house to get clothes?”

“No, no we really shouldn’t go back there.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll explain on the way.”

Heather turned to follow Troy from behind as both he and Will started walking out the gate, frowning at his back suspiciously. 

* * *

 

They had ended up driving to Will’s house, Will and Troy both in the back of Heather’s car amongst trash and dirty laundry, only having a sparse conversation over the awfully loud radio. Troy explained why he couldn’t go back to his house on the way as he said he would, giving a very quick summary of what had happened. It was obvious to Will that Troy still didn’t entirely trust Heather, but maybe that was just because he was sitting next to Troy and could see all the fidgety things he was doing. Will could still hear that uneasy tone in his voice, saw the quick apprehensive glances at Heather, but Will appreciated that Troy was trying at least.

(It made Will wonder why Troy trusted Will so fast. Troy seemed ready to tell his whole life story to Will if he only asked even after they had only been talking for ten minutes. It was probably just because they knew each other from school. But wouldn’t that give Troy more reason to be suspicious? It wasn’t like they were friends… Will needed to stop thinking so much about this.)

Eventually, the three of them pulled up to Will’s house, and Troy and Will got out.

“Am I dropping you off or are you coming back?” Heather asked, leaning over the seat and yelling out the window like a mom dropping off her kids.

“We’re coming back! We just need to grab some things. Right?” Will looked up at Troy, who was already starting to walk away. He noticed Will’s gaze and nodded, then continued walking.

“Well alright, but take too long, I don’t wanna sit and wait in this car for an hour.” Heather barked after them.

Will grabbed the key from underneath the pot of mint on his doorstep and unlocked the door, letting Troy in first before walking in.

“I’ll find some clothes for you, just hang on a second,” Will told Troy as he walked down the hallway into his room.

Troy nodded, standing in the living room looking lost. He always had this ‘lost kid in a supermarket’ look about him when he was at Will’s house. The house was silent as Will shuffled around Jonathan’s old room and the hallway closet looking for clothes that Troy could borrow.

It weirded Will out, how quiet it was, his house was never this quiet even when his mom was at work and it was just Will. He couldn’t even hear the birds or bugs from outside like he usually could. Will really wished Troy would say something just to fill the silence, Will didn’t think he would though and Will certainly won’t be the first one to talk.

He found some clothes in a dusty box in the hallway closet and threw them to Troy, who didn’t catch them and only watched them fall to the ground.

“Alright, there are some clothes you can borrow, I’ll be back.” Will went into his room, hoping Troy heard him. He looked spaced out and Will said it kinda quietly.

When Will was done getting changed he came out from his room and looked cautiously into the living room and luckily saw Troy in the new clothes, standing in the living room.

“Will, I think I know what we should do.” Troy murmured, Will barely heard him.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

Troy shifted his gaze from the window to Will, his eyes were somewhat glassy like he had been lost in thought, but he looked determined nonetheless.

“Well, it seems like these things are always hiding out in the woods or somewhere around the woods. So maybe that’s where they all live or something? I don’t know, but it seems like every place we’ve seen these things is close to the woods. Your house, my house, the pool, it makes sense doesn’t it?” While Troy explained he moved his hands around, counting places on his fingers.

“I guess. But what are we supposed to do with that?”

“We could uh, walk around I guess or… or we could have a stakeout!” Troy exclaimed, bouncing up on his toes a little.

“A stakeout?” Will repeated, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah! That’d work, wouldn’t it? We could stay all night in the woods and if anything happened we’d know because we’d be there. Even if it’s nothing, it’s better to make sure, right?” Troy looked like he wanted to pace but had to keep himself still because his feet kept moving like they were trying to walk.

“I guess." Will repreated. "What about Heather?”

“She could come! It could be the three of us, so that way if one of them tried to attack us at least one of us should be able to kill it. Besides, she has a car. That’s really helpful.”

Will thought about it, twisting the bottom of his shirt. He supposed it was a good idea, and a good place to start. While the idea of laying out in the woods with two people he doesn’t know very well sounds kind of not fun, Will thought Troy’s reasoning made sense. All the places they had noticed the shapeshifters had been around the woods, and it would explain why the forest by Will’s house was silent.

“It’s worth a shot, I guess.”

Troy smiled, the biggest smile Will’s ever seen for Troy, and bounced up on his toes.

“Okay, awesome. We should probably go back to Heather now, she’s probably pissed.”

“I don’t know why,” Will complained, locking the door after they had left and returning the spare key to its place, “we didn’t even take that long.”

“Well, you took longer than me.”

“I didn’t! I just changed in my room so you couldn’t tell that I was ready at the same time or probably earlier than you.”

“Hey!” Heather hollered out of the car window. “What took you so long? I was ready to just leave.”

Troy and Will both got into the back seat, still arguing over who was ready first, as Heather started the car again.

She paused, looking into the mirror. “Where are we going now?”

“Uh about that, Troy thought we should stake out the woods because all the places we’ve seen the shapeshifters at have been near the woods. We could camp out tonight so if anything is weird or anything happens we’d be there to notice.” Will explained, leaning over to try to see Heather’s face.

“What if I can’t go tonight?” She prompted, looking out the window so Will couldn’t see her.

“That’s fine, we’d just do it ourselves then,” Troy spoke up, leaning forward a little too.

“I can do that, sure.” She caught Will’s eye in the rearview mirror. “But listen I was thinking while you guys were inside, and I remembered I have another friend who mentioned noticing something weird. Maybe we could visit her and see if she knows anything?”

Will glanced at Troy, who looked somewhat scared despite his best efforts to hide it.

(Troy had very expressive eyes, Will thought.)

Will tapped his hand against Troy’s in the hope of comforting him. Really all Will knew to do to calm Troy down at this point was touch his arm or hand, luckily, it had worked so far.

Troy exhaled and looked over at Will, briefly meeting his gaze before turning away again. Will couldn’t tell if his face was red or not.

“Sure, I guess it couldn’t hurt,” Troy answered, looking out the window.

“Alright let’s go.” Heather smiled, pulling away from the Byers house. 

* * *

 

“The mall, really?”

“What? She works here!”

Troy groaned, putting his face in his hands.

“What do you have against the mall? It’s new, it’s fun, and _everyone_ likes it.” Heather defended, pulling a flannel over the tank top she had been wearing.

(Will had no idea when she had changed out of the bathing suit, he couldn’t remember her changing.)

“I just don’t really want to be around big crowds of people right now.”

Heather paused, straightening up like if she had just noticed something. “You think there might be some of those things here? I didn’t even think of that…”

“No,” he huffed, folded his arms, “I think I just don’t want to be around teenagers when I already have a lot going on.”

“Don’t forget you have a giant bandaid on your face,” Will added.

“Shut up,” Troy snapped, but there wasn’t any malice in it.

Will smiled amusedly, watching Heather and Troy argue.

“Well listen this is where she works and this is where I know we’ll be able to find her so we’re going.” Heather took the keys out, opening the door and walking out with finality.

Troy groaned again, hauled himself off the seat, and dragged himself out of the car.

“It’s okay, I’m sure no one will notice you or how it looks like you got hit by a car.” Will nudged Troy, then ran ahead to catch up with Heather.

* * *

 

The entire time the three of them were in the mall, Troy slowly trudged behind Will and Heather pouting like a toddler.

“Ah shit,” Heather cursed suddenly.

“What?” Will asked, turning around to make sure Troy was still there.

(The mall _was_ really busy, Will was somewhat afraid that Troy would get lost in a crowd and they wouldn’t be able to find him again. He kind of wished they had one of those lines of rings that kindergartners used so they could keep Troy from getting whisked away.)

“I uh, I don’t have a tent or a sleeping bag so that’s gonna make our little stakeout a bit harder.”

“That’s fine, we’re in a mall. I’m sure you could just buy one.”

“I guess, let’s try to find a store to buy one then.”

Heather crossed over to the other side of the mall, walking very quickly and with purpose.

“Where does your friend work?” Will asked, struggling to keep up with her.

“Uh, that ice cream place in the cafeteria.”

Will tried to think about why he knew that place but was distracted by Heather turning sharply into the food court. Will barely had time to grab Troy’s arm and tow him along before Heather glided across the food court to the ice cream shop.

“Hey Steve works there,” Troy noticed, and Will remembered why it sounded familiar.

He had never actually been there in the one other time he had been to the mall, but Dustin said something to Will about it before.

Dustin. Right, Dustin.

Where was Dustin? _Probably at home,_ Will thought, trying to calm himself down, _he’s probably at home, safe and playing video games._

Heather waved down the teenage girl working at the counter, already chatting as Will and Troy finally caught up to her.

“Robin this is Troy and Will, Troy, and Will this is Robin.” Heather introduced, leaning on the counter.

“What’s up?” Robin greeted, handing a little girl standing next to them an ice cream cone.

“Hi, you work with Steve don’t you?” Will asked, stepping closer to the counter.

“Oh yeah, I did. But he just kinda _stopped doing his job_ ” She hissed, voice full of such venom that it shocked Will. She must have noticed because she apologized, resting an elbow on the glass case where the ice cream was kept casually. “I mean, we were understaffed before but since he just ditched us now I have to pick up all his slack. It’s a mall during the summer, we’re really busy and it sucks that I don’t have an extra pair of hands right now.”

“Did he say anything before he left?” Troy asked, speaking for the first time in this conversation.

“Nah, not that I know of. He just didn’t show up one day for his shift and I just had to fill his place.”

“Do you know why he stopped showing up?”

Robin glanced at Troy, a knowing look reflecting in her eyes, which flickered dark for a second like she was angry or jealous maybe. Her eyes barely revealed the irate emotions, they disappeared so quickly, Will almost missed it.

“Maybe he couldn’t take it.” Robin snarled.

There was a beat of tense silence, where Robin shifted her intense gaze to Will instead, a casual half smile on her face. Will felt like she was staring into his soul, and he noticed Troy shuffle closer to him out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t know, I didn’t figure a rich kid like him would be used to working, especially not working in an ice cream parlor called ‘Scoops Ahoy’ selling ice cream to your friends and classmates. It’s not the _coolest_ job to have, so maybe he quit to pursue something more glamorous, something that sounds nicer when you tell girls where you work.” Robin explained, her casual position and the soft, friendly tone of her voice offset the resentful way she had been talking before.

Will wasn’t sure what to make of her.

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m his brother,” Troy said, shifting his weight awkwardly. Robin’s eyes flashed in recognition.

“Oh, you’re _that_ Troy. Yeah, I think he’s mentioned you a few times.”

“Yeah, well, I think he’s mentioned you too.”

Robin nodded, still staring at Troy for a few moments longer before turning to Heather. “So, Heather, why’d you bring these guys with you? Did you need to talk to me about something?”

“Uh yeah actually, we were wondering if you’ve noticed any more of those weird shapeshifter things,” Heather said, running a hand through her hair.

“What? More? Have you seen one before?” Troy asked.

“Yeah. It was a fox, it tried to attack me in my car. It clawed at the windows and doors and tried to break in. It cracked my windshield and scratched up my doors. I had no idea what was happening. I tried to drive away but I hit it with my car, and when I got out to see what had happened I noticed it was covered in black blood and was getting scaly and red. It dented my car too, so that sucks.” Robin explained, keeping an easy smile on her face. Her hand moved while she talked, but only in calm circles every so often, everything about her was relaxed now.

“God, are you okay?” Will was somewhat shocked that so many people had run-ins with these things but just didn’t say anything.

“I’m fine, I was just a little weirded out it all. I was talking to Heather about it and she mentioned something about her friend and we figured it was some kind of monster imitating people and animals. I guess you guys have seen them too?”

Will nodded.

“Yeah one was acting like my mom, but I was able to kill it. And Troy here, his whole family turned out to be shapeshifters too, he was-” Will stopped when Troy grabbed his arm. He glared wide-eyed at Will, shook his head.

“What?” Will questioned, quieter than usual. He couldn't tell why Troy didn’t want Robin to know about what happened.

“It’s fine, he doesn’t have to tell me if he doesn’t want,” Robin assured.

“Alright fine, well that’s how we know these things. Just this morning we ran into one.”

“Yeah, Billy that stupid dickhead lifeguard I used to work with. I was just telling you about that remember? I hit him into the water.” Heather explained, talking excitedly.

“Wow, can these things not swim or something?”

“No, they just sink to the bottom,” Troy answered quietly.

“That’s so weird. Well good job Heather, those suburban moms who all have crushes on him are going to wring your neck though.”

“Oh God, I didn’t even think of that. I’m in serious danger, one of them could run me over with their station wagon.” Heather whined sarcastically and laid a hand on her head dramatically.

“You might want to watch your step while walking around grocery stores, Heather.” Robin and Heather both laughed, and suddenly Will felt a little bit like a third wheel.

He was wondering if Troy felt the same way when Troy gave him an awkward look.

“Anyway,” Heather said suddenly, “we were wondering if you had noticed anything else weird? Or seen any of those things?”

“No, nothing worth noting. Just that one fox.”

Heather nodded, tucking a piece of curly brown hair behind her ear.

“Well, we should probably get going, it was lovely seeing you, Robin.”

“You know you can see me whenever, you make this job so much more bearable, especially since Steve bailed on me.” Robin and Heather smiled at each other for a moment, like they had forgotten everyone else was there.

“Anyway, it was nice meeting you two, I hope everything works out,” Robin said once Heather turned away.

Heather cleared her throat.

“Alright c’ mon guys.” She started walking away, looking at the ground.

Will still noticed that her face was pink as they walked away from the counter and out of the food court.

The three of them were walking through the mall, Troy still walking painfully slow, when Heather saw a store advertising camping supplies in their window, stopping abruptly in front of the store. She strode to the back where they had a small selection of tents disassembled in bags, she picked one up and held it in her hand. She started reading the tag, then her eyes widened and she hurriedly but delicately put the tent back. She looked at the tags of the other tents and her mouth fell open slightly, eyebrows furrowing. She turned on her heel and exited the store, Will right behind her.

“What was that about?” He questioned, noticing Troy standing by the escalator looking for them.

She had left the store before Troy had even been able to catch up to them.

“Thirty dollars!” Heather exploded, throwing her hands out violently, “They were thirty dollars! What the hell kind of tent is thirty dollars!? No way in hell am I spending thirty dollars on a piece of shit tent I’m only going to use once! What the hell?”

Will grabbed Troy by the arm and dragged him with them as Heather stormed off in the opposite direction of the store to the parking lot.

“Well, what are we going to do then? I still only have one tent and we’re not all going to fit in it. Only one person could fit so two of us would just have to sleep outside.” Will remarked.

“Oh and fifteen for a sleeping bag. When else am  _I_ going to use a sleeping bag? Why should I spend my hard-earned forty-five dollars on this bullshit I’m going to shove in my closet and forget about after today!? It’s so fucking stupid” Heather continued, as if she hadn't even heard Will at all.

“Wait wait,” Troy pulled his arm from Will’s grip and ran in front of Heather, “you don’t even have a sleeping bag?”

“No! I had one when I was like ten but I’ve grown a foot and a half since then, there are horses on it, and my dog chewed it up! It’s really, very unusable.”

“So you don’t have a sleeping bag _o_ _r_ a tent, and you refuse to buy one and not all of us will fit into the tent that I have, so what are we going to do?” Will asked, stepping around to stand in front of Heather alongside Troy.

“I don’t know, do you have another-”

“Wait, I have a tent and probably a sleeping bag at home,” Troy spoke up, just remembering with a jump.

“Well that’s not helpful, you said your house was probably crawling with shapeshifters!” Heather shouted.

“Yeah well, what else are we going to do? Just sleep on the dirty fucking ground outside in the woods? What other option do we have?”

“I guess we don’t really have another option…” Will murmured, considering what Troy was suggesting.

“Yes! Thank you!” Troy turned to Will briefly, then turned back to Heather. “Besides I need new clothes because I’m sick of wearing his stupid brother’s clothes, and I could grab my shovel and some cash. It’d just be a quick in and out.”

Heather sighed, looking around the mall while she thought. “I guess we could do that.”

“Yeah! It’ll be fine, I promise,”

“Whatever. Let’s go to the car, I’ll buy us dinner.” Heather turned around resignedly and continued walking.

“It’s like four in the afternoon.” Troy protested.

“Five,” Will corrected, “but still that’s weird.”

“I don’t care.” Heather snarked, leading them back to the car. 

* * *

 

So there they were, sitting in the back of a McDonald’s, talking about monsters like crazy people.

Will just hoped no one was listening to their conversation.

“So, we’re going to go in there, you’re going to get clothes and money, I’m going to get the tent, and he’s going to get the sleeping bag?” Heather summarized after taking a drink of her soda.

“Yes, essentially. But listen we don’t know if there’s going to be shapeshifters there or not so we have to be on our toes.” Troy pointed a french fry as he responded.

“Yeah about that, we’ll easily be able to tell you apart from a shapeshifter of yourself given, uh your face-” Will gestured at Troy’s cut on his cheek, accidentally brushing his hair and cheek as he moved his hand. It surprised Will a little, he and Troy just stared at each other for a second after Will had accidentally just batted Troy’s hair.

Will turned away, face uncomfortably hot, and coughed before continuing. "But how will we tell if we’re talking to the real Heather, or how will you know if I’m the real Will?”

Troy reached over and grabbed Will’s hand, holding it up. Will had no idea what Troy was doing, he only knew that his was even hotter now, and consequently probably very red.

“I’ll know when fire comes out of your hands,” Troy said, half joking but still with a certainty that made Will feel a little safer.

“I guess I’m the only one who does that, huh?”

Sparks blew gently off his fingers, Troy was still holding onto his hand.

“Okay that’s all fine and dandy but what about me? I don’t want you to hit me with a shovel or light me on fire!” Heather exclaimed, visibly distressed.

“I don’t know. It seems like they don’t remember things from the childhood of the people they’re imitating, you could tell us something from your childhood that it wouldn’t know?” Troy suggested, dropping Will’s hand when Heather spoke.

“How would you know if it’s accurate or not?” Heather argued.

“I guess that’s true.”

They were all silent for a second before Heather jumped up.

“I’ve got it! Those things don’t understand cars. My friend refused to get in my car or use her own, so if I tell you something about my car or can drive you’ll know it’s me!” Heather seemed very excited about her idea, but Will still thought there was room for error.

“Alright, yeah, let’s go with that.” He agreed because it’s not like they had anything else.

“Awesome, I’m going to go to the bathroom, then I’ll be back and we can go.” Heather gathered the trash from her hamburger and fries up on the tray and threw the trash away on her way to the bathroom.

“Listen, you’re just getting the things we said. Don’t try to sneak anything else out, we don’t have time for that.” Will told Troy, eating a fry.

“I know, I know. This is going to be fine. If all else fails, you still can light them on fire. That’s always pretty effective.” Troy nudged Will, smiling at him softly.

Will smiled back, lifting his head a little. “I guess it is nice to have that to fall back on.”

“Yeah definitely.” Troy looked around the McDonald’s, then stood up abruptly.

“I’m going to the bathroom too, I’ll- uh I’ll be back. Don’t leave without me.” Troy walked quickly out of the booth and disappeared into the bathroom.

“Um, okay,” Will muttered, looking at the empty booth.

“Will?” A voice from behind him said. Will turned around and Lucas was standing there.

“Lucas! Hi.” Will stood up and walked out of the booth.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came here with my parents and my sister. They’re ordering right now. What about you?”

“I- I came here with my mom, and she’s in the bathroom” Will lied, hoping desperately that Heather wouldn’t walk out right now.

“Oh okay, cool.” There was a brief silence before Lucas changed the subject. “Have you heard from Dustin?”

Will was a little surprised by the question, but he really shouldn’t be. Dustin and Lucas have falling outs all the time and lose touch. They’re constantly bickering, and they have a sulking period before eventually apologizing to each other.

Will shook his head. “No, I haven’t. Why? Did you two get into a fight?”

Lucas shrugged, looking at his feet.

“Not that I know of, but you know he’s always been pissy about Max and I dating. I’ve tried my best to hang out with him just as much as I would if I wasn’t dating Max, and I don’t rub it in his face that we’re dating or anything, but I feel like he’s still upset about it.” Lucas rambled, scratching the back of his neck.

“You haven’t heard from him at all?” Will clarified, trying not to get too worried.

“Well I heard from him a few days ago, and we went to the arcade just the two of us and everything seemed fine but I tried to call him and he never picked up and… I don’t know I just thought I’d ask.”

Will shook his head again, leaning on the side of the booth. “I haven’t heard from him at all either, sorry.”

Lucas shrugged again, looking up at Will. “It’s fine, I was just wondering.” He paused and looked behind him. “Have you heard from Mike?”

Will realized he hadn’t for a while. Under normal circumstances, this would probably just be because Mike was busy with his family or with El so he didn’t have time to call and check in on Will or hang out. Which would be fine usually, Will’s life did not, in fact, revolve around Mike. But now the silence made Will worry that Mike had been replaced by a red scaly monster.

“No actually. I guess he’s probably hanging out with his family or El or something.” Will suggested, acting casual.

“I guess so. I just saw Max yesterday, and she had just seen El, so I was just wondering about Mike you know? But you’re right, his family is really involved, so he’s probably just with them.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Lucas!” His mom called, leading the rest of his family to the door.

“Alright, I gotta go, but I’ll see you around? I guess?”

“Yeah, definitely.” Lucas started walking away before Will stopped him, running over and tapping his shoulder.

“I wouldn’t worry about Dustin. I’m sure you guys will make up if he is mad, you guys always turn out okay. Just talk to him about it, it’ll be fine.” Will assured with a faint smile.

Lucas smiled too, nodded, then walked away with his family.

“Who was that?” Heather asked, appearing suddenly behind Will.

Will flinched in surprise and turned around holding his hand over his chest. “God, you scared me. It was one of my friends, Lucas.”

“Ah,” Heather nodded, taking another sip of her soda, “is he friends with Troy too?”

Will raised his eyebrows at her.

“Uh, no. No, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Oh, that’s weird. Aren’t you and Troy friends?”

Will scoffed, folded his arms, rolled his eyes.

“No, no we’re really not.”

“I really thought you were.”

“At the very most we’re acquaintances. We only started talking because of this whole shapeshifter shit, we kind of had a rough past.”

“Oh, okay. You guys just act like you’re close like it seems like you know each other.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t.” Will huffed.

It wasn’t his fault if Troy was an idiot and kept getting hurt and acting stupid so Will had to fuss over him and watch him all the time. It wasn’t his fault that he and Troy were thrown into this situation that made them come together and rely on each other.

“Alright, whatever. I was just wondering.” Heather raised her hands defensively and leaned back into her side of the booth.

Will was going to sit back down when Troy walked back over to the table.

“Should we go?” Heather Suggested, looking between Troy and Will.

“I guess now’s a good a time as any,” Will mused, gathering up the rest of the trash. He glanced at Troy to make sure he was on the same page.

“Let’s go then,” Troy confirmed, standing up.

The three of them walked out of the McDonald’s into the quickly dying sunlight.

Will watched Troy as they walked to Heather’s car, considering how he felt about Troy now. He had apologized and hadn’t done anything actively terrible in a while, in fact, he had even been kind of nice to be around these past few days, but still, it wasn’t like those past years could be easily swept under the rug. He noticed how the hazy, golden light from the sunset shone in Troy’s hair, the way it cast shadows on his face, the way it made his eyes look like honey. Will felt flushed and he looked away.

Sure, they were acquaintances, but if Troy was an actually nice person and had actually changed for good, who knows. Maybe they could become friends.

Maybe. 

* * *

 

By the time they got to Troy’s house, it was getting dark. Will had really hoped they’d be able to get there before then, because walking into a dark house that might be full of monsters that maybe want to eat you, but it wasn’t like they had any choice now.

“Okay, so, we’re going in to get three things: a tent, clothes, and a sleeping bag. I can get clothes if you two get other things. There’s probably a lot of those shitheads in here, so we shouldn’t turn on any lights and should try not to make a lot of noise. Maybe they won’t notice us if we’re really quiet. Got it?” Troy explained, gesturing with the flashlight in his hand.

Will and Heather nodded.

“Where are the tent and sleeping bag?” Heather asked, glancing at the house nervously.

“The tent is probably in the basement, the sleeping bag is in the closet.”

Her eyes widened at the mention of the basement.

“Do you really think it’s smart to go into a dark, damp, concrete room that’s creepy in the best of times?” she challenged.

“I really don’t think it’s the  _best_ idea but the tent is down there so it’s just what we have to do.”

“I could get the tent,” Will volunteered, explaining further when Troy and Heather looked at him like he was crazy, “I have fire powers, it’ll be easiest for me I think.”

“Don’t light my house on fire, Byers.”

“No promises.”

Troy’s face softened into a smile that made a little of the anxiety brewing in Will melt away.

Heather, however, was still stiff in fear, chewing on the inside of her lip as she stared at the Harrington household.

“Are we doing this or what?” Heather prompted.

“I guess.” Will grabbed his flashlight and turned it on, turning to Troy. “Are you ready?”

“I kinda have to be.” Troy opened his car door and jumped out, shining his flashlight at the house. “Let’s go.” 

* * *

 

When they all walked through the shattered screen back door (it was completely broken and Will knew that but for some reason, he and Heather just waited for Troy to go in first) they had split up immediately. Heather ducked around a corner and into the front room, Troy walked past the kitchen and disappeared down a hallway, and Will walked around the dining room. He didn’t see anything amiss, besides the burnt half deer half scale creature cadaver on the ground that hadn’t been picked up.

Will followed where Troy had been and walked up to the stairs. On the way up he noticed pictures of who he assumed were Troy and Steve and Troy’s little sister. One picture showed a little kid around Will’s age who must have been Steve holding a fish the length of his arms. Another showed Troy, Steve, and their parents in front of a sign for a zoo, Toy was missing both of his canine teeth and was wearing a sweatshirt that was way too big for him. There was a picture in a frame decorated with elephants of a little girl wearing a strawberry bathing suit and purple water shoes running through a sprinkler. Her eyes were closed and her face was wrinkled in a smile, her hair was tucked into sloppy pigtails with green bows. Will guessed that was Diane, she couldn’t have been more than three years old. On the top step, there was a picture of Troy sitting in the grass with a huge golden retriever laying in his lap. Troy was missing a bottom tooth now along with his canines and was still wearing that sweatshirt that was too big. Will smiled softly at the pictures, they were cute. Endearing, maybe.

He finished climbing the stairs and stood for a second in the dark hallway, wondering which way to go. There were six doors, he wasn’t sure where to start. Will figured he should start with the first door, maybe the tent was in an upstairs closet or a laundry room, he reasoned.

Will pushed open the door and realized this must be Diane’s room.

There was a pink bed with a canopy hanging over it, and a giant tiger plush laying discarded off to one side. The room was covered in glow in the dark stars in no particular pattern, and assorted stickers stuck on random points on the wall. A small night light in the shape of a princess glowed in the corner, making the room seem eerily abandoned.

Will was still exploring the room out of curiosity when he felt someone touch his back. He screamed and jumped away, raising his arms defensively.

It was just Troy, the stupid fucking idiot.

“Oh my God, I almost lit you on fire!” Will hissed as Troy tried and failed miserably to contain his laughter. “Why did you do that? You couldn’t have just called my name or acted like a normal human being? What the fuck?”

Troy’s barely stifled laughter turned into an amused grin as he pretended to be shocked.

“What?”

“I’ve never heard you curse before I think, and I’ve definitely never heard you say fuck.”

Will rolled his eyes.

“You’ve heard me cuss before.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t even think you _could_ say fuck. Like, legally.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“I know! I just- you’re always like this sweet innocent person who probably has birds talk to them and I wasn’t sure you could get upset enough.”

“Well, you scared the shit out of me! It’s dark and there are fucking demons after us! How did you think I’d react!?”

“I didn’t know how else to get your attention without being too loud or scaring you, I thought you’d know it was me.” Will scoffed, shaking his head.

“Ugh, whatever, let’s just move on.” He was getting tired of arguing while whispering, it was starting to hurt his throat.

“Why were you in my sister’s room?”

“I didn’t know it was her room! I was just-”

“Snooping?” Troy interrupted.

“Looking around!” Will corrected, voice getting louder than he meant it to.

“Yeah, sure.” Troy lead Will down the hall to the last door on the right and opened it.

"Oh my God, you’re a hoarder!” Will exclaimed, laughing.

“I’m not a hoarder! I’m just disorganized.” Troy defended, digging through a pile of clothes and shoes and blankets on the floor. He pulled out a backpack and started shoving clothes into it.

“This is a complete disaster,” Will crackled, nudging a discarded shoe box with his foot.

There was a twin bed in the middle of the room that was covered in crumpled up blankets and two pillows. The bed was surrounded by random items like paper and boxes and books to the point where Will could barely see the floor.

“It could be worse.” Troy retorted as he lifted up the blanket hanging off his bed and looked under it. He zipped up his backpack and dragged Will out of the door.

“I can’t believe your room looks like that.” Will giggled as quietly as he could as they walked down the stairs again.

“It’s not that bad.”

“It looks like there was a hurricane.” Troy paused, looking around the house. Will fell silent, worrying that he saw something.

“Have you seen Heather?”

“Not since we first came in.”

Troy shrugged. “She’s probably in the kitchen.”

Will nodded and followed Troy into the front room. Troy opened the closet and dug around while Will stood at his back, watching the room.

"So what did Lucas want?" Troy brought up as he shifed through hats and gloves on the bottom of the closet.

"He juse wanted to talk. He hasn't heard from Dustin in a while, he asked if I had."

Troy stopped looking for a second, the glanced up at Will.

"You don't think he's-"

"No," Will cut Troy off, folding his arms. "I don't think. I'm sure Dustin is just being dramatic as always. They'll make up and everything will be fine."

Troy shrugged, standing up on his tip toes to look through the top shelf. 

"Whatever you say." 

Troy stopped, stepped down, and shut the door.

"The sleeping bag isn't in there," he explained, leading Will out of the room. "I hope Heather already grabbed it."

Will nodded, shining his flashlight around as Troy took Will into the living room.

The room was centered around a large TV (Will wasn’t sure he had ever seen a TV so big), with shelves on either wall and two big leather couches in an L shape around a glass coffee table. One shelf had books on it, another had movies. Will squinted at the shelf with books and noticed there were records on there too. The room smelled like old wood and leather and filled with eerie music that Will just noticed. It was a song Will had never heard, but he guessed was probably pretty old. All Will knew was that the swooping instrumentals and the way the man signing was crooning only made Will more on edge.

Did Troy put it on before he left? Why this music?

Will shone the flashlight in the corner and noticed a record player sitting on a table, where the music must be coming from.

“Did you turn that on?”

“I don’t think so, I think the thing pretending to be my dad did. I don’t know how it knew how that worked but… I guess it’s been on this whole time?”

“It’s freaky, it’s like a scene from a horror movie.”

Troy nodded, walking over to record player and glancing at it.

“Oh I know this song,” he murmured distractedly, picking up and glancing at the sleeve. Then he turned back to Will, smiling playfully.

“Want to dance?” Troy asked, and Will knew he wasn’t serious _at all_ but he still felt his heart stop for a second.

“You can’t be serious,” Will whispered once he was able to talk.

“Oh not at all, I just think it’d be fun.”

“Right now? Where there might be things that want to eat you outside?”

Troy shrugged, still smiling.

“I don’t know. The music is already on, and it just feels like something we should do.”

He held out his hand to Will, taking a few cautious steps toward him.

“So? What do you think?”

“I think you’re a moron,” Will told him bluntly, but couldn’t keep himself from smiling.

“Ouch, that’s harsh.”

“It’s true.”

Will tiptoed just an inch closer to Troy and reluctantly lifted his hands into where Troy’s were, resting his flashlight on the table. Troy gently swayed them side to side, and Will really had no idea how he had gotten himself into this situation. It felt sort of like Will’s brain had shut off completely, and he couldn’t focus on any particular thought other than the weird, calm eye in the storm that Will and Troy were in, and somehow Will didn’t feel worried about dying at the hands of a shapeshifting monster. It was just Will and Troy, in this dark living room, with the flashlights barely illuminating Troy’s face, the soft music faintly playing in the background.

Troy was very distracting, Will surmised.

Will had no idea how much time passed, it felt like hours- it felt like seconds, but at some point, the record stopped and only a scratching sound could be heard.

Will and Troy jumped away from each other like a spell was broken, Will was very embarrassed and very thankful that the room was so dark because he was sure he was making a dumb face.

Troy turned off the music, smothering the room in silence.

“And neither of us died,” Troy whispered, picking up his flashlight again.

“I guess so. Why did-” Will stopped abruptly when he heard a loud clang from another room.

Will jumped, almost dropping his flashlight.

Troy looked around, swinging the light around to scan the room.

“It was probably just Heather.” He assured, grabbing Will’s arm. “Alright, I need to get something from the kitchen.”

Troy pulled Will along as he walked to the kitchen, stopping abruptly in the middle of the hallway. Troy bent down and picked up the shovel that he had been waving around yesterday.

“I got it!” Troy quietly cheered.

Will nodded and smiled caustically.

Troy continued through the house to the kitchen, gently pushing the door open cautiously before walking in the rest of the way.

Troy looked around the kitchen then walked to the pantry, moving things around until he pulled out a Sleepytime Tea box.

“Really? Tea? You could have just bought some.” Will hissed.

Troy opened the box and showed it to Will. Inside was wads of cash all bundled together with rubber bands.

Will was going to comment on how that’s a weird place to store money but remembered the book with five hundred dollars in it sitting on his mom’s self and decided against it.

There was another crash from outside and Troy looked at will, grabbing a few wads of money and shoving it into his pocket. “I’m going to go look for Heather.” He whispered, then slinked out of the kitchen.

Will looked around the kitchen, opening cabinets and looking in drawers. The kitchen was big, just like the rest of the house, and modern and everything seemed clean. There was a cutting board on the counter with a knife laying next to it, a pot on the stove, dishes in the sink. The fact that Troy left in a hurry was very obvious in the kitchen.

“Will!” Troy yelled from somewhere in the house.

Will winced, stomping out of the kitchen.

“Oh my God _shut up_!” Will growled. “Why are you being so loud?”

“Shit, sorry! I found the tent, could you come over and help me with it? I’m in the garage!” Troy shouted back, voice echoing.

Will groaned and started walking to what he assumed was the garage door, but was stopped by someone whispering his name. Will turned around and Troy was right there, hiding in a doorway to a bathroom.

“What are you doing here?” Will whispered. “I thought you were in the garage?”

Troy shook his head, eyes wide and face pale. “That’s not me.”

Will blinked dumbly, looking between Troy and the door he was about to go through.

“It’s not?”

Troy shook his head again, faster this time.

Then, like he remembered something, he pulled back the bandaid on his face to reveal a crimson scab cutting across his cheek.

“Hey! Are you coming?” The other Troy called from the garage, the echo adding a macarbre tone to his voice.

“I’m coming!” Another person shouted from behind Will and Troy.

It was Heather, walking in from the front room and almost walking into the garage before Will stopped her.

She flinched and almost screamed, but then realized it was just Will.

'You scared the shit out of me!” She whisper-yelled. “What are you two doing over here? I thought you were in the garage?”

“No, that’s not him,” Will replied, pointing to Troy’s cheek as evidence.

Heather nodded slowly in understanding, adjusting her stance. She was holding a sleeping bag under one arm.

“What about you?” She asked Will. Will lifted up his hand and was able to make a tiny fire in his palm.

Heather nodded again, chewing on the inside of her lip.

“Uh, when you’re driving you’re only supposed to use one foot the whole time,” Heather explained quickly, looking at her hands.

“Alright good enough.”

“Did you get the tent?”

“No, not yet. I got sidetracked.” Will admitted.

There was a crash from somewhere else in the house. The three of them all looked at each other, then turned back into the dark house.

“Will?” The monster beckoned from the garage, sending a chill down Will’s spine.

“I’ll go get the tent.” Troy offered.

“You don’t have anything to defend yourself with.” Will pointed out, staring at Troy like he was crazy.

Troy lifted up his shovel, smiling like it was some great weapon.

“Oh right, how could I forget about your _shovel_.”

“I’ll be fine,” Troy assured, opening the door next to the bathroom door he had been hiding in, “I’ll be right back.”

Troy disappeared down the steps, and the house went silent.

Will waited, holding his breath. There was a crash that shattered the careful silence that the house was under, then there was a series of loud thumps as Troy ran back up the stairs, tripping over the last few in his hurry.

“I got the tent let’s go let’s go, come on holy shit we need to leave-” Troy rushed out, the whole sentence blending into one.

Troy started running, carrying a lantern in one hand and a tent bag in another.

Will and Heather both stood still for a second, processing. Will glanced down the stairs, his flashlight lighting up the dark hall, and he saw a horde of grotesque crimson monsters crawling and snarling up the stairs. He and Heather both screamed and spirited away, running out of the shattered glass door and through Troy’s backyard to the car.

Heather unlocked it in a hurry, and they all scrambled inside once the doors were unlocked.

“Go! Go! Drive!”

“I’m trying the key won’t go in!”

“Holy shit we need to leave just go!”

All three of them were yelling at the same time as Heather struggled to start the car. After some cursing Heather was able to drive away, going much faster than she probably should have been.

The car fell quiet, the only sound coming from the radio.

 _Hold Me Now_ was playing, it didn’t take long for Will to recognize because El listened to that song a lot. Will was vaguely aware of how close he was sitting to Troy, they were basically leaning on each other, but he really couldn’t find it in himself to care. Will’s shoulder was pressed up against Troy’s and Will’s hand was one bump in the road away from being on top of Troy’s, but Will was either too tired or too shaken up after what had just happened to really be worried about it.

The car remained hushed as they drove through the dark, empty town, the car headlights the only thing lighting up the shadowy road ahead. 

* * *

 

They stopped at Will’s house to grab a few things at the last minute, the house was completely dark and still. Despite the completely abandoned house unnerving Will, he went inside, Troy walking along with him.

“You really don’t have to come with me.” Will had insisted as Troy got out of the car.

“I know, I’ll just make sure you’re safe.”

“ _I’ll_ make sure _you’re_ safe.”

Once inside, Will grabbed a sleeping bag, the tent, two pillows, a lantern, and was going to bring a box of matches for good measure when Troy stopped him.

“Really? You don’t need those, you have fire hands.”

Will shrugged. “I don’t want to light the forest on fire by accident.”

“Oh, and you won’t do that with matches?”

Will rolled his eyes and put the matches back.

“I’m a hazard to all forests I guess, Smokey Bear might kill me.”

Troy chuckled, leaning against a counter.

Will wrote his mom a note telling her he was staying at Mikes for the night and he’d be back tomorrow afternoon. He really hoped that since she would get home so late she’d assume the Wheelers were asleep and wouldn’t call.

(The worry that whatever had failed to capture his mother weeks ago had succeeded this time and she would never come home that night was eating away at the back of Will’s mind, but he tried his best to ignore it. She often worked later than she thought she would, and Will was sure she was at the store, watching the clock like she often was.)

Troy grabbed the blankets off the mattress he slept on the night before on the way out, and even though Will thought that was very weird he didn’t mention it other than a raised eyebrow on the way to the car.

As the three teenagers pulled into the parking lot for the campsite, the lot was completely dark except for a halo of light surrounding one lone streetlight. The parking lot was nearly completely empty, which was strange because this was their busiest season.

“Do we have everything?” Heather asked, turning around to face Will and Troy.

“Yeah, I think so...” Will looked around the car, counting everything he saw.

“We’re good.” He confirmed.

“Then let’s go.” Heather clapped her hands then took out her keys and jumped out of the car, Troy and Will following after her.

They grabbed everything from the car and the trunk, making sure they had everything before walking into the pitch black woods. There wasn’t a moon that night, so the sky was clear and glassy, the stars standing out against the black sky.

The three of them wandered through the woods, trying to find an open place to set everything up. Eventually, they came to a small clearing marked by piles of ashes from old fires and holes from tents being set up and taken down over the years. They set everything up with some struggle, getting the tents all pitched and the lanterns on and working. Will was able to get a fire started in one of the circles using some sticks he had found around the clearing.

Heather sighed, lounging on a log that had been perched around the fire, and looked around.

"Your arm's bleeding," Will noticed, leaning over to get a better look. Red blood, glimmering in the firelight, was dripping down Heather's forearm from a small cut.

"Oh shit, it is. One of those bushes scratched me on the way out, I didn't think it was that bad but..." Heather wiped off the blood on her sleeve. 

She adjusted herself on the log, sitting with her ankle propped over her knee.

“So? Who’s sleeping outside?” She asked.

“No one has to sleep outside, the tent I brought is big enough for two people,” Troy argued, he was laying on the ground with his arms laying on a log behind him.

“Well then, I think I should get to sleep by myself,” Heather stated matter-of-factly, “I’m the only girl here, and I’m the oldest.”

“That’s not fair!” Will protested.

“Yes, it is! I’m a teenage girl who’s almost an adult, I deserve my own tent!”

“I don’t want to share a tent with Troy.”

“That’s rude.” Troy put a hand over his chest in mock offense.

“I just want my own tent!”

“Well too bad, it looks like you’re tent buddies.” Heather stood up, stretched, and looked around the campsite. “Alright, I’m going to go to sleep.”

“I thought the point of the stakeout was to stay up all night and see if anything happens?” Troy questioned.

“No? I thought we were just going to stay in the forest so if anything _did_ happen we’d notice it.” Heather replied.

“Yeah, I thought that’s what we were doing.” Will agreed.

“Alright, whatever, that’s fine. I was fully prepared to stay up all night but that’s fine.”

Heather put a hand on her hip and tilted her head at Troy, smiling coyly. “You can stay up all night if you want, but I’m going to sleep.”

She started walking away but then turned around.

“Do you guys want me to put this out or what?” She pointed to the fire with her foot, tugging her hair out of its ponytail with her hands.

Will glanced at Troy, then nodded. “Yeah I guess, go ahead.”

Heather started kicking dirt over the fire sporadically like she had no idea what she was doing. “Alright, let's hope that works.”

She held her hand up in a peace sign and turned around, walking to her tent. “Goodnight nerds.”

“Goodnight Heather,” Will called after her.

“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” Troy added half-heartedly.

He looked up at Will, sitting up.

“Do you want to go to our tent too?”

“I guess.”

Will grabbed the lantern that was sitting next to them and kicked more dirt on the fire. Troy grabbed the blankets they had laid on another log as they walked to the tent, Will leading the way. Will unzipped the sleeping bag so it was like a blanket, laid an extra blanket on the floor of the tent like a sheet, and laid the sleeping bag on top. He put down the two pillows and got underneath the sleeping bag, laying the lantern in the middle of the two pillows.

“I think this’ll work, what do you think?” Will asked, adjusting the sleeping bag.

“I think it’s fine.” Troy smiled, fragile and nervous.

Will understood that, he thought, it was weird sharing a tent when they had just become not-enemies yesterday, but it was better than sleeping outside in the dirt.

“Here, I’ll leave for a second so you can change if you want.” Troy grabbed his backpack and dragged it outside the tent.

“Thanks…” Will murmured, unsure if Troy could actually hear him or not.

Will put on a bigger shirt that was actually his for once and pajama shorts (nothing embarrassing on them this time, just red) and waited for Troy to come back in.

“Are you good?”

“Yeah, you can come back in now.” Troy crawled back in, wearing a sweatshirt from somewhere called ‘Reptile Gardens’ and gray shorts. He shimmied under the sleeping bag too, laying an extra blanket over himself.

“Well, this is fun.” He said, laying on his side and propping himself up with one elbow.

“Mm-hmm, definitely.” Will agreed sarcastically.

Troy looked at the floor briefly, then back up at Will.

“Listen, I’m sorry for whatever happened to you two years ago. Whatever it was, it seems like it really did a number on you and I’m sorry, I couldn't have helped. And I’m sorry that people keep making fun of you because of it, that really sucks. I’m just, I’m sorry about all that.”

Will blinked in surprise. Troy just kept surprising him, kept making all these heartfelt apologies that Will didn’t think he was capable of, kept acting like a human being.

Will really wasn’t sure what to say, he wasn’t sure what he _could_ say that wouldn’t give too much about his situation away.

“Troy…” Will started, completely lost on how to continue.

He decided to do something impulsive.

“I’ll tell you what happened.” Will finished decisively, making up his mind.

So he did, he told Troy all about what he had been through two years ago and last year. Will talked and talked, expecting Troy to laugh or say he was lying or to leave, but he didn’t. Troy just listened intently, staring at Will like he was the only thing that mattered. Will kept talking until he didn’t have anything left to say, and Troy knew everything about what had happened.

(Almost everything. Will had left out some things, like his ill-timed and secret crush on Mike he had caught that started last summer and grew to its peak in November, that he had been sure he would never get over. Will did get over it, he wasn’t sure when exactly when, but he did know that when Mike grinned that fantastic smile of his at Will his heart didn’t feel like it was caving in anymore. Looking at Mike and El together didn’t feel like a knife in his side like it used to, and when they broke up, he didn’t get the jump of guilty excitement he thought he would. Getting over someone is easy, Will decided, it’s gradual and you never know the exact time it happened, just like falling in love.)

When will had finished, Troy just stared at him for a minute, then started nodding.

“Okay, sure, okay.” Troy nodded again, looking down in thought. “That sucks, that really sucks.”

Will shrugged, a little amused by his response.

“You get used to it.”

Troy shook his head, floored. “No that’s- that’s awful. Dude, I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t need your pity.”

“No, I’m not pitying you! I’m not, I’m just-” Troy sat up, running a hand through his hair. “I’m just really not sure what to say except sorry.”

Will sighed softly, playing with the sleeping bag in his lap. “It’s okay, really.”

“No, it’s not. You’re really brave for going through that and just, not relying on anyone and being able to move on and continue by yourself. I would be such a mess if that happened, but I’m stupid and easily upset so… Anyway, I’m just shocked that all of that happened to you and you just acted like normal the whole time.” Troy shook his head again, completely in shock. “You’re really amazing, you know that?”

Will felt himself blush, and he looked away.

“Ha, no, I’m not. But that’s nice of you to say.” He laughed, trying to get his face to stop being so hot.

“I’m sorry I was such an ass to you.”

“You said that already, it’s fine. Really.” Will risked a look at Troy and instantly regretted it because Troy was looking at Will like he was the most important thing in the universe and Will was _not_ ready for that.

“I’m going to sleep now,” Will muttered hurriedly, laying down facing away from Troy.

“Yeah okay, we probably should.” Troy agreed, and Will could hear him shuffling.

Troy turned off the lantern, making the whole tent pitch black. Will closed his eyes, but his face was still hot and his mind was racing, so he couldn’t fall asleep yet. He didn’t think Troy was asleep either, but he couldn’t tell and wasn’t about to ask.

All Will could hear as he tried to fall asleep was Troy calling him amazing, over and over in his stupid earnest voice with that horrible starry look in his eyes that made Will’s heart jump.

Will was so stupid, he was such a mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm worried the writing is stiff and repetitive I hope it wasn't.  
> Also the reason this story isn't from Troy's perspective is because his thoughts would be so incoherent and gushy. Like he gets embarassed when Will so much as looks at him, and now here he is sharing a tent with him and Will keeps touching his arm he is such a mess. He acts all cool calm and collected but really he's struggling so much and he's being impulsive (e.g slow dancing with Will) and he's just a huge gay disaster. Besides, Will's transition into his feelings for Troy is much more interesting than listening to Troy just repeat himself over and over.  
> Also a Heathers reference! Points if you caught it. (Heather is from Ohio, where Heathers is set. I just really love Heathers adsfedhgfdldk)  
> And yes the song Will and Troy danced to is Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year because I say so.  
> Anyway I really hope you liked this chapter, my tumblr is burgundy-burgers feel free to message me or send an ask or reblog something or really interact in any way.  
> (Please I'm lonely)  
> If you liked it please leave kudos or a comment, they make me so happy and I love every single one I get.  
> Thank you for reading this long ass note, I hope you have a great day!


	3. Come over tonight, bring a candle we'll just sit and stare we can share in the feeling of going nowhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Friend Named Paul- Varsity

Will woke up the next morning with Troy’s arm wrapped around him and his legs entangled with Troy’s. He could feel Troy's breath on the back of his neck, and his other arm pressed against Will's back.

Will tried to pull himself free without waking Troy up, but when Will moved Troy shifted and tightened his hold on Will, so it seemed like Will was stuck.

There was gentle sunlight filtering through the tent, birds chirping outside. The noise of the forest was back, bugs and animals chittered, a breeze rustled tree branches.

At first, Will thought Troy was crazy for sleeping in a sweatshirt and under so many blankets, but he was _so_ cold. It was like Troy was made of ice, he was freezing. Will could feel his cold touch against him, and he understood it now.

Ever since the shadow monster shit, Will had been so hot, all the time. He wasn’t sure if it was a psych thing, and he only thought he was hot, or if his body temperature actually had risen to accommodate the fire inside him, but he always felt heat crawling through him. Maybe it was because he couldn’t shake the feeling of being possessed by the shadow monster, the feverish heat that always suffocated him. _Everything_ was too hot. The freezing bath water, the chilled October air, the cool hospital, everything made him burn up. Maybe Will was haunted by that horrible memory of heaters blasting unbearable heat at him, feeling like his skin was on fire, something inside of him pulling and tearing in its hurry to escape as it felt like Will was burning alive.

Whatever the reason, Will always felt too hot. The summer was awful, especially at night, even with no blankets and two fans going Will still felt too hot to fall asleep. With the open window and the constant flipping of his pillow, he just couldn’t sleep with the terrible humid heat in the house.

Except now, with Troy wrapped around Will, he didn’t feel like he was burning from the inside out. Troy was freezing, but Will felt balanced out for once. Troy’s weirdly icy touch was refreshing, the cooled opposite side of the pillow in a hot July night. Will appreciated how chilly Troy was, it was like sleeping with an ice pack. That seemed to be all Will really needed in order to be able to sleep.

Still, Will wasn’t sure how Troy would react when he woke up, considering this was an extremely embarrassing situation for both of them.

(Will didn’t actually hate it though, it was kind of nice. Will was sure Troy would be embarrassed, but he wasn’t that upset. He could fall back asleep like this actually, but he probably shouldn’t.)

He wouldn’t have to wait to find out how he would react, apparently, because Troy shifted suddenly yawned as he woke up. Will made the split second decision to pretend to be asleep, just to make things easier for both of them.

Troy lifted his head and looked around, presumably taking in what was going on. He quickly leaped away from Will, pulling most of the blankets with him. Troy sighed (maybe huffed, Will wasn’t sure, he made an upset exhaling noise) and sat up in the tent.

Will wasn’t sure how long he should act like he’s asleep, but he figured he’d give it another two minutes or so. Actually pretending to be asleep is harder, and more boring than it seemed. Troy just sat in the tent, despite Will hoping he would leave so he didn’t have to pretend to be asleep anymore, silent and still.

Will decided to pretend to wake up, slowly like he was still shaking off sleep. He sleepily stretched one leg out, sticking out his arms in front of him. Will looked around, then turned to face Troy, propping himself up on an elbow.

“Hi,” he croaked, voice still hoarse from sleep.

“Hey,” Troy nodded at Will, voice much clearer than Will’s. His curly brown hair was rustled and messy, Will didn’t think it looked bad, though. The tired, easy smile he gave Will made Will’s heart clench and Will wished he was still asleep.

“Do you think Heather is awake?” Will asked, sitting up all the way and rubbing his eyes.

“I guess we should check.”

Troy and Will climbed out of the tent, unzipping it and stepping into the bright morning.

The forest was even louder outside the tent, and Will could see birds moving around in the trees surrounding them. The clearing was a circle of overgrown grass with circles of ashes from fires surrounded by stones placed at random around on the grass. Logs usually were next to them, all of them in very rough shape. The clearing was big enough for probably five or six large tents at most, with four places for fires. There was a rabbit by the edge of the grass, eating a dandelion.

“Heather!” Troy called, knocking on the canvas of her tent. “Are you there?”

“What if she’s asleep?” Will hissed, moving Troy away from the tent.

“Well, then I guess she’s not anymore!”

Will huffed as Troy continued to call for Heather. He expected Heather to start telling him off and groggily emerge from her tent, but the tent remained silent.

“Is she in there?” Will asked, concern slipping into his voice.

“I don’t know. Heather? Heather are you there?” Troy waited for a response before continuing. “I’m coming in, I’ll give you five seconds! Five, four, three, two, one!” Troy unzipped the door and poked his head in.

“She’s gone.” He reported, standing straight up again.

“Where did she go?” Will thought aloud, looking around the clearing.

“I have no idea. It’s like eight in the morning, where would she have gone?”

Will paused, turning around to face Troy.

“You think she was taken?”

Troy shrugged, folding his arms and looking away.

“I don’t know, I guess it’s possible.”

“Well shit, let’s go look for her!” Will exclaimed, walking into the forest surrounding them and motioning for Troy to follow him.

They walked around the woods, looking the best they could and calling out Heather’s name. They were trying to find their way back to the parking lot so they could see if Heather’s car was gone or not, but Will was pretty sure they were not going the right way. The whole forest looked the exact same, they very well could be going in circles. Eventually, Will could hear the sound of cars driving by, and after walking past a few more trees he saw that they were walking along the highway.

“Troy! We’ve been going the wrong way this whole time!” Will called over his shoulder. “Troy?”

Will turned around and realized Troy was no longer behind him. Already on edge, Will got even more worried over the fact that he was suddenly alone in the woods by a highway.

“Will! Come here, I found something!” Troy shouted from somewhere in the woods.

“Troy! Where are you!?” Will yelled back, rushing to where it sounded like Troy’s voice was coming from.

“Over here!” Troy called, and Will found Troy down the highway right next to the road.

“Troy! Hey!” Will ran over, noticing something next to Troy.

When he got closer he realized what it was. It was Heather, folded up in an unnatural position, legs folded painfully and one arm was thrown outward. Her other arm was torn off beneath the elbow, and what remained was cradled to her chest. Her hair was tossed over her face, but Will could still see her eyes, open wide in shock, and her mouth, fallen agape with blood dribbling from a corner down her chin. There was a large gash across her chest leaking blood into her clothes, which were filthy with mud and gravel and blood.

“Oh God,” Will whispered, staring at her body.

Except it wasn’t her.

The blood that had soaked through her shirt and dripped from her mouth and poured from her open skull was pitch black. Her teeth were too sharp, her skin too red.

Will felt a rush of relief when he realized that the person lying dead in front of him was not, in fact, Heather, but the relief washed away instantly when he realized that the cadaver on the ground was not human at all. It was strange, Will felt thankful that Heather hadn’t actually been hit by a car, but that meant she might be in an even worse position.

“It’s not her,” Will confirmed out loud.

“It’s not her.” Troy echoed, neither of them moving their gaze from the monster’s body.

After staring at the body of what looked like Heather for a few moments longer, taking in her fate and wondering where the real Heather was, they turned around back into the woods and walked back to the clearing.

“Who would have hit her if that guy who always almost hits people was already taken?” Troy asked, breaking the silence that had surrounded them.

“Who? Billy?”

“Yeah. I mean who would hit something that looks and feels an awful lot like a person and keeps driving?”

Will shrugged.

“Maybe they thought it was a deer or something.”

“Maybe. I guess those things really don’t understand cars.”

When they got back to the clearing, Will stared at the two tents blankly.

“How are we going to get back?” Troy questioned, the forest fell eerily hushed.

Will shook his head, he didn’t know. He couldn’t think of anything other than that creature wearing Heather’s face with black blood splattered all over it. He couldn’t think of anything other than imagining Heather walking out of her tent in the middle of the night to pee or something but getting swept up in the dark.

“Can you drive?” Will asked, turning to Troy.

Troy shook his head.

“No, I’m fourteen! I’ve only driven a car like, twice.” He paused, running a hand through his hair. “Can you drive?”

“No! Why would I ask you if you can drive if I can drive?”

Troy sighed.

“There’s a bus station not far from here I guess. I have some money, we could take that.” Troy murmured, not moving from where he was standing next to Will in front of Heather’s tent.

“I guess we should take her stuff with us?” Will suggested.

“I guess so.”

They started packing up then, taking down the tents and folding blankets and rolling up sleeping bags. There was almost too much for them to carry, but Troy shoved one of the tents in his backpack so they were able to carry it all. So they walked out of the woods, both their backpacks stuffed with clothes and blankets and a tent sticking out of Troy’s backpack.

As they walked to the bus station they passed the parking lot, only a few other cars there alongside Heathers. Will glanced sadly at Heather’s car as they walked by, it looked so sad in the silent parking lot. Will was sure he was just being sentimental but he still thought the car already looked like it had been abandoned for a while.

They walked alongside the highway, quietly, carrying camping supplies and looking around anxiously every once in a while. They probably looked like runaways to the people driving by.

Eventually, they got to the bus stop, a shabby little canopy with ads on both sides holding it up, hanging over the bench at a sharp angle. Troy and Will waited for the bus, sitting on the bench, in silence. Will didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t think Troy did either, so they just didn’t talk. The morning light shone through the gaps in the canopy, illuminating the dust as is fluttered down from the ceiling. Troy’s cut on his face was a giant scab now, and at some point either he took off the bandaid or it fell off, so the cut was fully visible, only adding to the way Troy looked like a victim of a bear attack. His hair was still falling all over his face, the soft light reflecting in it. His eyes were tired and unfocused as he stared at the pavement in front of him.

Will still wasn’t sure about how he felt about Troy, it was all very complicated. But Will figured he had bigger problems than spending time thinking about his feelings for this boy he really only just now started to know. There was too much going on to really be worried about it. If it turned into something and Will and Troy weren’t eaten by shapeshifting demons, he would burn that bridge when he came to it. If they didn’t get that far then, oh well. He wasn’t going to lose sleep over something that might not ever be a problem.

When the bus arrived Will realized really just how much they looked like they were running away. The camping gear, the scratches, the grubbiness, the way they paid in cash, it was all very suspicious. But the bus driver still let them board and didn’t ask any questions or interfere in any way other than a weird look when they first got on. So Will and Troy rode back to Hawkins in the stuffy bus, sitting in the back. The engine and air conditioning roared as the bus hobbled along the highway, trees rushing by in the windows. Troy and Will were sitting close together again, Will leaned his head on Troy’s shoulder (since it wasn’t the one that had gotten cut) as Troy looked out the window, their hands almost touching. Will could feel how cold Troy was from the chill radiating off his hand and from beneath his shirt on his shoulder. Will was tired and wanted to go home and was sick of this shapeshifter shit.

The bus pulled into the bus stop closest to Will’s house, on Elverly street in front of a second-hand shop. Will and Troy hopped off the bus, Will thanking the bus driver on his way out. Then they started the walk back to Will’s house.

“The town is so empty, is it usually this empty?” Troy noticed, looking around the barren street.

“It’s probably just because it’s a weekday morning… or something.” Will muttered, trailing off once he realized that his explanation didn’t really hold up. Even on weekday mornings, there were moms walking around, and during the summer there were always kids wandering through the town. Besides, it wasn’t even morning anymore, really. It was already afternoon, which was always a busy time for Hawkins. Yet it was still completely empty, Troy and Will were alone in the streets.

“I guess,” Troy brushed off the conversation, trying not to worry anymore.

They walked down Main Street, which was completely empty. Almost completely empty, because Will saw a figure jogging toward them in the middle of the sidewalk. At first, Will thought maybe it was Dustin, just without his hat, and Will worried maybe something had happened to him.

“Troy!” The figure called, running now.

Will didn’t recognize the voice, but he knew it wasn’t Dustin’s. A wave of relief washed over him.

“James!” Troy exclaimed, and ran to meet the person halfway.

It was James, Troy’s friend, and previous partner in crime. James never put very much effort into antagonizing Will and his friends, he only seemed to be doing it because Troy was doing it. Which wasn’t great, but Will always felt a little less angry at him because he also pitied James, imagining James as a poor lost soul who only had one friend and couldn’t bear to part from him.

Troy hugged James briefly, then grinned at him when they parted.

“Woah dude, where is this coming from?” James mocked, grinning back.

“I’m just really glad to see you. There’s all this weird shit going on and I didn’t know- God it’s just good to see you.” Troy gushed, shifting his feet excitedly.

“Yeah man, it’s good to see you too. What’s going on?”

As Troy talked, waving his hands around, Will noticed James seemed… off. He was standing so stiff, like every muscle he had was clenched. His movements seemed mechanical and insincere, and when he opened his mouth to talk his teeth looked too sharp and his throat was a deep maroon, which was strange. Still, Will wouldn’t do anything to hurt James until he was one hundred percent sure James was actually a shapeshifter.

When James looked past Troy at Will, making easy eye contact with him, an ice cold shudder shocked down Will’s spine. It made Will so uneasy that his hands twitched for a moment, heat rapidly flowing to his fingertips like they were preparing to light something. That really solidified Will’s suspicions.

Troy was talking still, excited about finding one of his friends in this mess, when fire ripped narrowly past Troy, hitting James. Troy yelped and jumped away as fast as he could, leaping back a few feet from James. James now had black veins popping against his skin, his face transforming into a monstrous red with a huge black mouth gaping across the length of his head. An ear-piercing screech tore out of the monster’s mouth as it fell to the ground in a burning pile.

Troy turned around to face Will, mouth agape and the right side of his face an angry red. His eyes were glassy as he raised a finger and pointed it at Will.

“That was really sneaky of you,” He laughed a wobbly, small smile forming on his lips.

Will smiled back, relieved that Troy wasn’t mad that Will could have killed Troy’s best friend if he had guessed wrong.

“I’m sorry,” Will apologized anyway.

Troy shook his head, walking back over to Will.

“Don’t apologize, you did the right thing,” Troy laughed again. “I was just too stupid to realize something was off.”

“You’re not stupid, you were just distracted.”

“Ha, I guess.”

Will noticed how red Troy’s arm was getting on the side that the fire blew past.

“I didn’t get you did I?”

Troy looked at his arm and shook his head.

“No, you’re fine. I’m okay.”

Will gently tapped Troy’s arm, and Troy flinched back.

“I’m fine.” Troy insisted, despite the fact that his arm was at least kind of burned.

Will felt guilty about that, he’d have to be more careful in the future.

“I’m sorry.” He apologized again.

Troy shook his head again, a smile working its way back onto his face.

“I’m okay, really. Don’t worry about it.”

“Alright,” Will glanced over at James, who was now just a pile of burnt, scaly flesh, “I’m sorry about James. That sucks.”

Troy shurgged, staring at James.

“It’s okay, I guess. I just really hope we’re able to get everyone back and get rid of these things.”

Will nodded, grabbing Troy by the wrist (of the arm Will didn’t accidentally burn) and pulled him along as they kept walking. The two of them wandered through the town and neighborhoods, mostly silent as they walked. They had been walking down the road near the one to Will’s house, Liverpool, which wasn’t completely covered by trees like Mirkwood was but didn’t usually have people walking on it either. Aside from the other shapeshifter they had seen, everything was going fine, then a sharp chill went down Will’s spine. He shuddered and looked around the street.

Will turned around and there was Mike, standing in the middle of the street. His head was cocked to one side, his knees were dripping jet black blood down his legs. He was staring, eyes jarringly wide, at Will. He shuffled another step closer, the sound of his shoes echoing.

“Will.” He stated. It wasn’t a call or an exclamation, he said Will’s name like he was something he just realized.

Will swallowed, tilting his chin up. He took a deep breath and willed his voice not to shake.

“Hey, Mike.”

Mike staggered forward again, nudging a rock on the road out of place. There was something wrong with his legs, beyond the fact that they were bleeding, and it made his gait inhuman and uncanny.

“What are you doing here?” Mike croaked, there must have been something wrong with his throat too.

“I’m going home, Mike.”

Mike nodded, eyes unfocusing and focusing on Will. He was already so beaten up (Will wasn’t sure by what) that Will was sure he could blow a puff of air toward him and he’d fall over. Mike opened his mouth briefly, ran his tongue over dozens of rows of sharp teeth that shone in his mouth. He licked his lips, cracked and dry with dead skin falling off of them. He then turned to Troy, like he hadn’t noticed him until now. His head was still stuck to one side, and it hung there heavily like he couldn’t lift it up.

“Who are you?” He growled, voice guttural.

“I’m not anyone- not anyone important.” Troy stammered, shoulders raised and hands clenched.

Mike swung his body back around to face Will, dragging his feet with him.

“Will,” Mike started, trudging toward him, rocks and gravel crunching beneath his uneven steps.

Will took another deep breath and walked as steadily as he could to Mike. He stopped a foot or two in front of Mike and held up his hands. Will glanced at his hands briefly, before exhaling and pouring flames from his palms. The fire shot forward and caught onto Mike, the creature burning in flames. The beast howled and its red skin started to become clearer as the fire roared on. It lost its hold on Mike’s face, slipping back into its true form as it rapidly burned alive.

Troy was watching from a good distance behind Will, face a mixture of awe and fear, arms folded and feet ready to run. Will backed up as the creature burned, hands held in front of him, already prepared to shoot more flames if necessary. Eventually, the shapeshifter was finally still and silent, a smoldering red and black heap on the gravel.

“That sucks,” Troy muttered, still staring at the burning pile.

“Yeah, yeah it does.” Will really hoped Mike wouldn’t get involved in this, he really had. Will had wished that Mike (among his other friends) would wake up every day and have a monster-free day of summer fun, and Will would deal with this on his own without bothering them. But Mike had been replaced by a red monster, which now set aflame in the middle of the road.

It made him think about his interaction with Lucas yesterday, and about all his other friends. He wondered if they had been taken too, replaced with demonic black blooded copies of themselves. He liked to think they were all at home, safe and sound and having a normal summer day, but he wasn’t sure if he could really believe that anymore.

Will sighed and brushed his hands on his shirt.

“Come on, let’s keep moving.”

Troy nodded and turned around to keep walking after one last glance at the dead creature. They walked down the street until they got to Mirkwood, a street Will hasn’t walked or cycled down in a long time. Will was already jittery from the run-in with the Mike clone, but walking down the familiar road in the dark, cloudy afternoon while the woods around him were almost silent, it only made him more anxious.

Suddenly there was a clap of thunder, muffled by distance. Troy huffed and looked over at Will, exasperated.

“I just hope it doesn’t rain until we get back to your house,”

“Yeah, me too. We better hurry up then, that cloud above us is really dark.”

They picked up the pace, all but running through the overcast woods to the safety of Will’s house. Just as Will’s house was in sight, it started to rain. Just a few drops at first, like it always starts, then turning into a downpour as the two boys ran as fast as they could to shelter. They burst through the front door, wet and tired and panting, dripping onto the rug in front of the door. Will realized that Troy had been standing on that rug soaked by rain twice this week now.

“Alright,” Will sighed, “I’m going to go dump this stuff in my room, I’ll be back.”

Troy nodded, slumping against the front door.

Will started to put things away, changing clothes while he was at it. He sat on his bed for a second, sighing and putting his face in his hands. A lot had happened that day, there was a lot for Will to process. Will sighed and stood back up after sitting for a minute, just catching his breath.

He walked into the kitchen and saw himself standing there. A mirror image of him stood in the kitchen, leaning into Troy, smiling amorously. Troy was standing against the kitchen counter, face beet red, eyes the size of saucers. He was standing completely still, not doing anything about the obvious shapeshifter in front of him.

Will saw it when it was his mother, standing in the kitchen above the stove with black blood dripping from its mouth, he saw it as Mike, jet bloodied knees and arms too long, and he saw it now as himself, grabbing his partner in this mess by the collar and leaking obsidian onto the crumbled tile floor. Will wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing, he should know to recognize the doppelganger by now, should know not to be deceived, but Troy was frozen, letting the copy snarl into his ear. So Will did the only thing he knew to do, he let go.

Fire rushed out from Will’s hands, burning the creature as it stood in the kitchen. It whipped around to face Will, hissing and screeching as it caught fire in the kitchen. It fell to the tile, aflame and writhing, and briefly, Will wondered if he should pour water on it.

Eventually, the creature stopped screaming and Will grabbed himself by the red ankles and dragged his own burning cadaver out the back door and onto the lawn, where he threw the tarp from the grill over it. Will watched the tarp for a few minutes, making sure it didn’t catch on fire, before peaking underneath. Under the tarp was the smoking half shapeshifter monster half Will Byers body, charred and covered in black veins. Will sighed and let the tarp fall to the ground, then turned around and walked back inside.

“Troy,” Will prompted, exasperated, “what the hell?”

“I know I’m sorry,” Troy ran a hand over his face and through his hair, “it caught me off guard! I just turned around and there you were and I just- I got distracted.”

Troy was sitting on the floor, leaning against the counter, fussing with his hair. His face was still bright red, an angry blush covering his cheeks. It looked nice on him, actually, but Will wouldn’t tell him he thought that.

“What was that?” Will asked, gentler this time.

Troy was obviously distressed, this was the most shaken up Will had seen him after a run-in with these things. The golden kitchen light softened Troy’s eyes, returning that honey-like look to them, and shone in his hair. Even as he sat in a tousled heap on the dingy kitchen floor of Will’s house, Will still thought he looked cute.

Will wasn’t sure if he had ever thought about Troy like that, but he realized he thought about him like that now.

Will crouched down next to Troy, sitting in front of him. He didn’t say anything, he only looked at Troy with a soft smile.

“What’s wrong?”

Sure, he _wanted_ Troy to tell Will what it was that was making Troy freak out so bad, but Troy definitely didn’t have to if he didn’t want to. Will hoped he was conveying that with his gaze.

Troy closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face, sighing heavily.

“Will I have something to tell you.”

Will nodded, encouraging Troy to continue.

Troy took a deep breath and opened his eyes, staring at Will intensely. Troy was looking at Will again in that way that made Will feel like the most important thing in the world like nothing could sway Troy’s attention from here. It made Will blush slightly, and he wanted to look away but he didn’t want Troy to think he wasn’t listening, so he kept his gaze focused on Troy.

“Listen, this is crazy and it’s really really embarrassing so just- just hear me out.”

Will nodded, shuffling his hands.

“Okay, so I… I have- for a long time I- oh good God,” Troy sighed, put his face in his hands. “Will, I have had a gigantic crush on you since I was seven years old. In middle school, that was- God that was part of it. It’s awful, it’s horribly timed, and I feel so so terrible about it.” Troy looked at Will again, eyes huge and fragile.

“I’m so sorry.” He whispered. Will was completely shocked, he had no idea what to say.

Whatever Will had thought Troy was going to say, this wasn’t it. Troy could have told Will that he had been abducted by aliens and Will would have been less shocked. Troy could have told Will that he _was_ an alien and Will would be less shocked.

“You’re kidding,” Will mumbled, still dumbfounded.

Troy shook his head.

“No, really wish I was though.”

Will thought about it, looking down at his hands. He guessed it did make sense, he would _never_ have suspected it, but know that he knew he could kind of see it. Troy had been all fidgety and blushy these past few days, but Will really hadn’t been around Troy long enough to know if that was what he was like all the time or not.

It was still raining steadily, the drops hitting the window and rainwater pouring through the gutter, the sound of rain filled the small kitchen.

Will stared at Troy, silent. Troy was still blushing as he frowned at his hands, shoulders hunched in on himself like he was trying to disappear.

“Troy.”

He lifted his head slightly, looking up at Will with breakable, watery eyes.

The only sound in the small, yellowed kitchen was the gentle hum of the fridge, and soft thunder and the patter of rain from the storm outside.

Maybe Will wanted to just do something crazy, he wanted something like this just once before the world ended (even though the world seemed to almost end, or his world seemed to almost end, yearly now). Maybe Will liked Troy too and maybe he was tired of questioning himself all the time, Will was tired of everything being so complicated.

Will leaned over, laid his hand on Troy’s cheek, and kissed him.

Okay, okay so they were kissing, and it was nice actually. Really nice, maybe. Troy’s lips were soft and his arms were wrapped around Will’s neck and for a little while, Will forgot about everything that had happened, everything that was still happening that could easily kill them both. Will forgot about everything besides him and Troy, and how he was kissing Troy on his kitchen floor.

Will remembered when they briefly pulled apart, realizing how stupid they were for sitting on the ground and kissing instead of eating or trying to call people they knew to see if they were okay or watching the house for shapeshifters trying to break in. Will didn’t really like thinking about that, so he kissed Troy again.

“This is so stupid,” Will said, a little breathless when they broke apart again, “we are _so_ stupid.”

“Maybe,” Troy hummed, kissed Will again, “but for once I feel like I’m doing something right like I’m not making the wrong choice, I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

Will pulled away then, far enough to look Troy in the eyes. Will wasn’t sure what to say then, he really couldn’t do anything other than stare at Troy, wide-eyed, shocked by his words and the honesty in his voice. Will’s heart was beating loud and fast in his chest, he was actually worried Troy could hear it, it was so quiet. He could feel the pink blush crawling up his neck and on his cheeks.

“Shut up,” he muttered, laughing despite himself. He wasn’t actually sure why he was laughing, it just sorts of slipped out, tired but bubbly. Troy laughed too, leaning back against the cabinet behind him.

“You’re still all wet, I’m sorry,” Will managed to say between laughter.

“I guess I am, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Troy chuckled.

They both just sat there, laughing without a real reason. At some point, they both stopped, and just stared at each other, smiling.

“I guess we should eat, we haven’t really eaten at all today except for granola bars earlier,” Will said, scratching his neck, “and I thought I’d call my friends, the ones I haven’t talked to, and see if they’re okay.”

Troy nodded, hands folded in his lap.

“Uh, listen, I don’t really know how to make any food on my own, so usually I just have like a Cup O Noodles or something like that…” Will admitted.

“I could make something, I have to cook lunch and breakfast for Diane and me a lot during the summer. It’ll probably just be grilled cheese though if that’s okay.”

Will nodded.

“Yeah, of course, the last time I tried to make grilled cheese it almost caught on fire.”

“How do you even do that? Did you try to cook it with your hands or something?”

“No! I don’t know how it happened! I was just watching TV and I guess I lost track of time because the smoke alarms started going off!”

Troy laughed, loud and genuine and Will thinks it’s the most he’s seen Troy laugh.

“Alright, alright, I’m going to go call some people,” Will smiled, rolling his eyes. As he made to stand up, Troy leaned into him and kissed him again. It was shorter this time, and softer, it seemed more casual than the first three, a kiss you’d give someone you’re used to.

“There are bread and cheese in the fridge, by the way,” Will told Troy as he stood up, offering his hand to help Troy up.

“Why is your bread in the fridge?” Troy asked, mockingly.

“Because we don’t have a breadbox dipshit,” Will quipped, walking out into the living room.

Then he paused and turned around.

“Actually, I think I’ll do it later, I’ll have better luck when everyone isn’t eating dinner.” Will reasoned, walking into the kitchen and sitting at the table.

Troy and Will talked and joked as Troy made the sandwiches, and Will felt like maybe everything isn't hopeless, maybe everything would turn out okay. As Troy cooked, Will noticed his arm again.

“Hey, how’s your arm doing?”

Troy looked down at his arm, the skin irritated and carmine, and shrugged.

“I mean it’s okay, it hurts kinda like a sunburn I guess. It’s nothing serious, don’t worry about it.” Troy reassured, shrugging again as he flipped a sandwich.

“That’s good. I’m sorry I kinda burned you, I really didn’t mean to.”

“I know, you’re fine, I’m not mad. You saved my ass, I had no idea there was a shapeshifter, thank you,”

“Yeah, no problem,”

Troy eventually finished the sandwiches, Will grabbed chips from the pantry (which was almost empty, he was lucky there were chips in there), and the two of them ate dinner sitting at Will’s kitchen table, having easy conversation and completely disregarding the monsters waiting outside Will’s house. Will really couldn’t focus on anything other than the excited tone in Troy’s voice and the way that his hair got curlier as it dried, falling over his forehead. Will was actually having fun.

But dinner ended, then Troy helped Will clean up the dishes, and then Will had to call all his friends and make sure they hadn’t been taken by shapeshifters. If he had known they the shapeshifters took people that they transformed into he would have been checking on his friends much more, he might have even brought them along with Heather and Troy and him. But, it was too late for that if the creature impersonating Mike earlier was any indication.

The mood shifted from light and fun to unnerving and nervous as Will listened to the dial tone, waiting for El or Hopper to pick up. El usually didn’t call him, they saw each other four days a week, there wasn’t really a need for her to call him the other three. She said Max would be staying at her house two days ago, and maybe she just hadn’t thought to call Will since then.

Maybe his mom was working late, also curious about the lack of people in Hawkins today.

(Will saw his note in the exact same place it had been, not flipped over and read, completely untouched. His mother’s bed was empty and looked the same as the previous day. Nothing in the house had been touched since he had been in it last night, he knew the likely situation, knew what had probably happened to his mother, but he still didn’t want to believe it.)

Will called El’s house, no one picked up. He called Max’s house, again no answer. Lucas, Dustin, Mike (just in case), no one ever picked up. So he called again, and a third time, and a fourth, no one ever answered, the line only rang and rang and rang. Will dropped the phone, the dial tone still ringing in his ears, the rain sounded so loud, the clap of thunder outside shook the house. Everyone was gone.

Will sank down to the floor, listening to the howling storm outside. He rested his forehead on his knees, curling into a ball. He wanted to think that they actually were home, they just weren’t picking up because of one reason or another. Maybe they’d call him back. Will thought he’d try on his walkie-talkie, so he walked into his room, and turned it on. He called out into empty static as he tried helplessly to get a hold of his friends. Will sighed, holding onto the walkie talkie, staring at the floor hopelessly. He could feel the worry burning a hole in his chest, eating away at his head.

“I’m sorry,” Troy apologized, standing in the doorway of Will’s room.

Will shook his head, putting the super comm back on the dresser.

“It’s okay, your family and friends are gone too, it seems like it’s just us I guess,”

“I guess,” Troy took a hesitant step in the room, then took another toward Will. He frowned at Will, a compassionate look in his eyes, and he walked over to Will and hugged him. Will exhaled and hugged him back, taking comfort in the fact that he wasn’t actually completely alone in this mess.

Will and Troy broke apart, and Will looked around his room as a distant clap of thunder sounded in the distance.

“I guess we’re really in it now,” Troy murmured, looking out of the window.

“I suppose, I think I’ve been really in it for a while, but it’s nice to have you here instead of just trying to do this by myself.”

Troy smiled, still holding onto Will’s arms, and Will felt a little bit better.

They watched TV for a little while (the local news only showed the technical difficulties screen, they noticed), not really knowing what else to do. They just sat on the floor in front of the TV, Will leaning on Troy’s shoulder, as the thunder drew closer. Time passed quickly, it got to be ten then eleven, then eleven thirty as they procastinated trying to sleep and stayed in the well-lit safe living room. But Will knew they needed to at least try to sleep rather than sit and worry in the living room in front of the TV all night and be exhausted in the morning. Will kept all the lights on, he wanted to be prepared if something was able to break in, and he double checked that all the windows and doors were locked.

The house was so quiet, it only added to the eeriness of the night.

Troy had started making the air mattress on the ground when Will walked in, shutting and locking his bedroom door as an extra precaution.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making the bed?”

“Well yeah I know, but,” Will paused, folding his arms and fidgeting, “you can sleep on my bed if you want.”

“I don’t want you to have to sleep on the floor-” Troy started before Will cut him off.

“That’s not what I meant,”

Troy blinked at Will.

“That’d be weird, wouldn’t it?”

“Troy you literally confessed to having a crush on me for seven years and we literally just kissed on my kitchen floor after fighting off two shapeshifters but yeah sure, _this_ would be weird.”

Troy rolled his eyes, letting the blanket he was holding fall out of his hands.

“I just think it’d be easier, we’d only have to make one bed, we’d know if anything happened to the other person, and if some of those things do get in here we have the high ground,” Will explained.

He didn’t mind sleeping in the same bed as Troy, they had already shared a tent _and_ they were just kissing two hours ago.

“I guess that’s true,” Troy sighed and nodded, “yeah okay, sure.”

Will smiled at Troy, then finished making the bed, putting on a few extra blankets when he remembered how weirdly cold Troy was. Will couldn’t stand the silence in the house anymore so he turned on a tape just to calm himself down.

When Will turned around he noticed Troy was sitting on the bed, picking at his arm that Will had burned.

“I have something that can help with that, if you want,” Will mentioned.

“Uh yeah, sure, thanks.”

Will unlocked the door and looked around the house carefully before walking into the bathroom and rustling through the cabinet under the sink. He found the burn cream and walked back out, freezing when he heard what sounded like something scrape against the side of the house. He whipped around, checking his surroundings to make sure nothing had managed to get into the house. Will hurriedly returned to his room, locking the door again behind him.

“Did you hear that?” Troy asked as soon as Will came in.

Will nodded, catching his breath by the door.

“I’m sure it’s fine, it’s probably just a tree branch or something.”

Troy blinked at Will, smiling thinly, obviously not convinced but he didn't want to say anything.

“Anyway, I got the stuff if you want it, your arms looks really red and I feel bad so… here.” Will tossed the burn cream to Troy, who barely caught it.

Will walked around his room, making sure everything was okay and taking a quick look out the window through the curtains before climbing into bed next to Troy. He reached over to turn off the lamp, leaving the room dark except for a digital clock and a nightlight he had dug out of the closet and plugged in for extra light.

Troy and Will shared a worried glance as a loud crash of thunder followed another scratching noise, and Will laid down on his side so he could face the window.

Will wondered if they should talk about how they kissed earlier and what that meant, but Will decided they didn’t need to. Nothing meant anything at the end of the world, he supposed. If they survived this and everything ended okay they’d talk about it then, if not Will got to kiss a boy and that’s all it was.

“Goodnight Troy,” Will said, holding a handful of the blanket to his chest.

“Goodnight Will,”

Will was pretty sure Troy wasn’t asleep, even after an hour went by, they both stayed awake.

“Troy?”

“Oh thank God, what?”

“I didn’t think you were asleep,” Will chuckled softly.

“Yeah, I can’t. It’s hard when you feel like you could be eaten at any time, you know?”

“Well, we don’t _know_ that they’re eating the people they imitate.”

“We don’t not know that,”

Will laughed again.

“I guess not,”

Will felt Troy shift away, taking most of the blankets with him.

“Dude, you took like, all of the blankets.”

“I just figured you didn’t need them, you’re always really warm.”

“I still want a blanket.”

“Well listen, these blankets aren’t very big.”

“Then stop being so far away, then I don’t get any blankets.”

Troy sighed in mock frustration and rolled back over so he was closer to Will, and threw the blankets over him.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

They both stared at the dark room in silence, and Will rolled over to look at Troy, or look at him the best he could in the dim light. His eyes were half-lidded, shining like a cat's in the dim light, lips parted slightly, hair spread out on the pillow. Will flushed, and looked away, thankful that Troy probably couldn’t tell Will was so flustered in the dark of the room.

He kind of wanted to kiss him again, but he felt like now wasn’t the right time.

“Should we actually go to sleep now?” Troy asked, voice quieter than before, slightly hoarse.

“Uh, maybe, it’s like midnight.”

Troy shuffled closer to Will, exhaling.

“Alright, goodnight Will, for real this time.”

Will scoffed.

“Goodnight, for real this time.”

Troy inched closer to Will, kissing him again briefly, before pulling away and grinning tiredly at Will.

Will couldn't help smiling back, then he rolled over again, turning away from Troy, face still very much too hot.

"What a dork," Will joked quietly.

"That's rude, you hurt me," Troy mumbled sarcastically, "I can't beleive you would say that to me."

" _Goodnight_ Troy,"

Will could feel Troy smiling at him, even as he was turned away.

Troy fell asleep pretty quickly, staying close to Will and shifting his legs around. Will thought it was weird that Troy moved around so much in his sleep, but it was better than Dustin’s sleep talking or how Mike woke up at two-forty every single night to get water only half awake.

(Thinking about his friends and where they were or if they were okay wasn’t a good idea, it only made him worry and feel trapped in this situation. He tried to put them out of his mind, but he missed them, he couldn’t help being worried. It did help to have Troy here to remind him that he wasn’t completely alone, to keep him grounded.)

Will was able to fall asleep soon after that, listening to the sound of Troy’s soft breathing and feeling the occasional cold brush of his arm on Will’s back as the thunder from outside rattled the windows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhh yeah, they kissed! Wow!  
> I actually haven't ever written a kiss scene for this ship, I've never gotten that far lmao, so hopefully it isn't that bad. I was so excited to write it I wrote this chapter really fast (5 days) just to get to it.  
> I also hope it didn't move too fast! I tried to have a lot of build-ups but I'm still worried I didn't have enough relationship building between them before the confession bit.  
> Good for them, the morons.  
> Also Heather, sorry girl :(  
> People are just dropping like flies now, so that's fun. The shapeshifters don't really need to go through the everyday lives of people they imitate so they're absent from places they'd usually be, which is why the town was empty.  
> Also, it just occurred to me these past two chapters started in the morning and all three chapters ended with Will and Troy going to sleep so that's weird. I didn't really think about it but these past two chapters both focused on events happening during a specific day so yeah. Weird.  
> Oh, also Will is kind of the embodiment of that Tumblr post where it's like "I know I just called you dude but I'm flirting with you" thank you goodnight.  
> Anyway please tell me what you thought! Comments and kudos make me so so incredibly happy. My Tumblr is burgundy-burgers so feel free to dm me or leave an ask or anything.  
> Thanks for reading! Hopefully the next update will be out soon!


	4. You can keep me company, as long as you don't care, I'm only happy when it rains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only Happy When it Rains- Garbage

 It was four in the morning, and someone was knocking on his door.

At first, Will thought he was dreaming, he _had_ just been awoken from a dream where he was forced to take care of a dictator’s pet birds in exchange for his family’s safety, so he assumed he had dreamed the sound. Will was ready to completely forget about it and go back to sleep when the pounding at the door returned.

Every hammering of the door dragged Will further from sleep, and by the time Will had pulled himself out from under Troy’s arm and walked out of his bedroom, he was completely awake, alert and terrified.

All the lights were still on, the TV was too, and the whole house seemed to wait in silence in the breaks between knocking.

Will carefully sneaked into the living room, looking around before heading to the door. He glanced through the peephole and saw Dustin. Dustin was standing on his doorstep, looking straight ahead, banging and banging his fist on the door. He wasn’t even saying anything, just pounding on the door like he was stuck in a loop.

Will thought there were only two reasons why Dustin would be standing on his doorstep at four in the morning: he was either on the run from a shapeshifter, or he _was_ a shapeshifter. Will couldn’t ignore the slim chance that Dustin was being chased by a monster and was seeking shelter at the only place he could, so he opened the door.

Will had guessed wrong, to say the least.

Dustin stood there in the open doorway, blinking at Will. Dustin’s mouth was pressed shut in a straight line like he was holding something in his mouth that he was worried would escape. He was hunched over, but he was still taller than Will, like always. He had a dazed look in his eyes. If the unsettling feeling building in Will’s stomach was any indication, this wasn’t really Dustin.

“Hey Dustin, is-” Will was cut off when Dustin charged at him, snarling and opening his mouth full of rows of deadly teeth.

As Will tried to push the monster off of him, he wondered why do they even try with a disguise and the whole shapeshifting thing if they’re just going to attack you two seconds later.

Will struggled, holding the creature above him by putting his hands on its chest as it snapped its jaws above his head. Will had an idea of how to get out, but he wasn’t entirely sure if it would work. He glanced behind him at his bedroom door, and since it seemed like Troy was still asleep and wouldn’t be able to help Will, he decided he had to just go for it. Will shot fire from his hands, still pushing on the monster’s chest, and the fire tore through the creature in the spot where Will’s hands were. It shrieked and jumped away from Will as the fire spread over its body.

Will backed away, slightly regretting lighting something on fire over his flammable carpet as he watched the thing pretending to be Dustin slowly burn to death. Will sighed and ran a hand over his face, catching his breath. He eventually stood back up and dragged the monster’s body out the front door and onto the driveway in the inky dawn.

It was still dark outside, the sun wouldn’t rise for another two hours, so the creature’s body was only dimly illuminated by the driveway lights on Will’s garage. Will shivered and looked around the late-night landscape, squinting at shifting trees and shadowy houses against the indigo sky. It was a nice night, the air smelled fresh and rainy, the sky was deep purple and the stars popped out visibly. The moon was huge and bright as it lazily sunk lower in the sky.

Will walked back inside after a quick look around his yard, making sure to lock both the screen and the wood doors behind him. Will eventually made his way back into his bedroom, dim and quiet, blindly maneuvering around as his eyes got used to the lack of light. He was able to start the tape again, the silence making him uneasy still, and then crawled back into his bed.

Troy hadn’t moved, still, sound asleep. Will had no idea how Troy could sleep through the ungodly screaming of the shapeshifter or through the loud knocking on the door but he was glad Troy didn’t wake up and notice Will was gone and freak out.

(Although what if Will had been killed or eaten or kidnapped and Troy stayed asleep the whole time and woke up the next morning and Will was gone, leaving nothing but a black puddle?)

Will shimmied back under the blankets, trying to avoid bumping Troy’s legs or arms because maybe sound didn’t wake him up but touching him did. He laid back down and tried to fall back asleep, feeling Troy shift around behind him.

As Will fell asleep again, he felt Troy’s arm wrap around his side.

* * *

 

Will woke up again, on his own, at around eight in the morning. Troy was gone, but the door to Will’s bedroom was open so he assumed (hoped) Troy was somewhere in the house.

Drowsily, Will got up from the bed and walked out of his bedroom, relieved to see Troy in the kitchen, trying to figure out how to use the coffee maker. He was less excited to see the body of something red and black on the stoop behind the screen door.

“Hey! You’re awake!” Troy greeted, a grin breaking out across his face.

“Hey,” Will pointed behind him at the monster cadaver leaning against the front door, “what happened there?”

Troy poked a button on the machine, then turned back around to Will.

“I got up and something was scratching at the door and I went to see what it was and it was one of those things and after kind of a scuffle I was able to kill it with a shovel.” Troy nodded at the shovel leaned against the wall next to the front door, dripping black blood.

It wasn’t 'kind of a scuffle’ as far as Will could see, Troy’s whole right arm was cut up and his left knee was scraped up and bleeding.

“Your leg is bleeding,” Will pointed out.

Troy looked down briefly, then turned back to the coffee maker.

“Oh yeah, I tripped and fell on the sidewalk at some point.”

Will sighed and reached up into the cabinet above the stove to grab bandaids. Troy made a small excited noise when he was able to get the coffee maker working, which made Will chuckle quietly.

“I got it working, all by myself,” Troy said, mock proudly.

“Wow, good job,” Will quipped back sarcastically as he grabbed hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls, and a box of bandaids and pulled out a large one.

“Alright sit down,” he told Troy, nodding at the table.

Troy sat in a chair, sticking his left leg out as blood dripped from his knee. Will crouched on the floor, twisted the cap off the hydrogen peroxide, poured some onto a cotton ball, and started to clean Troy’s knee. Will wasn’t sure if Troy got hurt more than him because Will had pyrokinesis and could use that to protect himself or if Troy was just more reckless. Maybe both.

Troy winced every time Will tapped the cotton ball to his knee, and Will thought he would have been used to it by now given how much he had gotten scraped up the past few days.

“Sorry,” Will apologized as Troy flinched back especially hard.

“It’s fine, I’m sorry for fidgeting so much,”

“Don’t worry about it.” Will peeled off the bandaid’s wrapper and placed it over Troy’s knee. He was suddenly reminded of all the times his mother had to do this for him, and thinking of his missing mother made Will’s stomach sink.

“Thanks for helping me with that,” Troy said, pulling his leg away and looking at the bandage, which was bright blue. At least Will didn’t have to give Troy one of the Star Wars band-aids he had.

“Yeah, no problem,” Will sat back, sitting with his legs crossed on the floor.

The coffee maker beeped, and Troy stood up to pour some coffee into a cup.

“Why do you drink coffee? You’re like fourteen.”

Troy shrugged.

“I like it, I’ve been drinking it since I was twelve.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not healthy,”

“My parents don’t care, and I’m sure it’s fine.”

Will rolled his eyes, standing up and sitting at the table as Troy grabbed a mug from the cabinet and poured hot coffee into it. Troy sat back down across from Will and took a drink.

“You don’t even put any sugar or cream or anything in it?”

“No? It tastes better black, without all that gross sweet stuff.”

“You’re insane.”

Troy smiled smugly and took another drink.

“Isn’t it hot?”

“Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure I burnt my tongue.”

Will chuckled, leaning on the table.

“Do you want breakfast or something?”

“Or something, yeah.”

“Like… God, I don’t even know what we have… Cereal?”

Troy nodded, leaning his elbows on the table and resting his chin on his palm.

“Alright, good, because I’m ninety percent sure that’s all we have.” Will stood up again, grabbing a box of cereal from the pantry (the only other things in there were onions, flour, and very stale marshmallows, they very desperately needed to go grocery shopping).

The dishes from yesterday were still in the sink, and Will was pretty sure they hadn’t run the dishwasher in four days. To be fair, they had other things going on, but still Will felt like he should clean the kitchen a little bit. Later, later he’d clean it. He took two bowls from the cabinate and filled them with cereal, then with milk, and threw two spoons in the bowls.

Amber sunlight shone in through the open window, the breeze ruffled the curtains as it blew in, cicadas chattered outside noisily, competing with the ringing of the windchimes by the back door. The sweet smell of nature in the summertime wafted in through the window, along with the crisp scent of the Earth after rain.

Will put his bowl on the table, then laid Troy’s in front of him. Before Will walked away, Troy leaned over and kissed him, holding onto Will’s wrist. Will pulled away, laughing softly.

“What? Am I still allowed to do that?”

“Yeah sure, definitely, you just smell like coffee.

” “Wow, I wonder why that is.”

“Yeah, it's a real mystery,” Will said as he sat down across from Troy. They talked while they ate, most of it meaningless, but Will noticed it was easier to talk to Troy than it had been before, which made sense really.

The sound of the forest outside Will’s house was back, filling in the gaps between conversation and giving background noise while they talked.

“So what are we going to do now?” Will asked eventually. Troy looked out of the window, moving his spoon around his bowl in circles.

“I don’t know,” he started, “I don’t know where to go or where to start. The woods had some shapeshifters in there, but it seemed empty for the most part. Heather’s gone, your friends are gone, both of our families are gone, I mean where _can_ we go from here?”

Will sighed and leaned back in his chair.

“I don’t know either, it seems like it’s just us now, but I don’t know where we could go or what we can do.”

Troy took another drink of his coffee.

“Wait, remember that weird girl at the mall the other day?” He exclaimed.

“Yeah? Robin?” Will felt like he already knew where Troy was going with this.

“Yeah her. We could go see if she’s still around. She knows or knew, about these things too, maybe she could help if she’s still here?”

“Okay, but what if she’s already gone?”

Troy shrugged.

“I think we should still check, I mean what if she is still around, she’s just lonely and confused and scared, like us? I think it’s worth a try.”

It occurred to Will that he never really had any ideas in these situations so far. It was out of his area, he guessed. Usually, he has his friends or family with him or listening to him to help when he doesn’t know what to do, but he supposes Troy has kind of filled that role now.

“The only problem is I don’t know where to find her.” Troy continued.

“Me neither… I guess the mall is really our only shot at finding her besides going door to door.”

“Phonebook?”

“We don’t know her last name.”

“Alright then,” Troy decided, “mall it is.”

* * *

 

They didn’t bring much, some cash for bus tickets and Troy brought his shovel, that was really it. It was around nine thirty when they left, and Will wasn't even entirely sure that a bus would be running but they didn’t have another choice. They were able to move a lot quicker when Will remembered a shortcut, and when they realized there was a closer bus stop than the one they used yesterday.

“Are you kidding me? How did we not realize that?” Troy groaned.

“I have no idea, we’re morons,” Will answered as they walked to the bus stop, which was much much closer.

“I _knew_ that there was one further out though, which means it would have been closer to your house, but I didn’t even say anything,” Troy complained.

“I knew that too, but I completely forgot and when we got to Hawkins I just kinda went on autopilot I guess.” Will must have just completely shut down yesterday because he knew about that bus stop.

Yesterday they both seemed to just lose any and all common sense they had. Not just yesterday either, not that Will thought about it, it had been like that for the past three days.

“We spent like four hours walking yesterday, we didn’t have to do that at all.”

“Listen, it wouldn’t have been four hours if you didn’t walk so slowly!”

“I don’t walk slow, you walk slow! You kept slowing me down!”

Will scoffed, turning around to face Troy who was, in fact, lagging behind him.

“Yeah, right. _I_ was the one slowing _you_ down. Sure,”

Troy raised his eyebrows, letting a small laugh slip out.

“Wow, where is this coming from? That’s so rude.”

“I don’t know, maybe I’m a little cranky over the fact that because we’re so stupid we walked for four hours when we did not have to at all,” Will smiled wryly, walking backwards.

“Yeah you were apart of that too, you didn’t remember the bus stop either.”

“I _know_ I was a part of that, we were both morons.”

“I think that’s just how it is when we’re around each other, I think we could have done a lot of things differently, looking back, but we were just too dumb to notice. You’re smart, actually, so I don’t know why things have turned out this way.”

Will smiled again, more genuine this time.

“Aw, hey, you’re smart too,” he turned back around and walked normally again. “Not in the way that’s helpful right now though, I guess.”

“I think we both just kind of forgot how to act like a normal person.” Troy chuckled, jogging to catch up with Will.

“Maybe, it’s been a weird week.”

The two continued bickering and the noise in the woods flickered in and out like static around them. It was surreal, for some reason. Maybe Will was just tired, but this whole experience felt kind of like a fever dream. All of Will’s experiences felt like fever dreams, yet they always turned out to be real. 

They got there just in time, a bus was pulling up as they ran towards the stop. They got on the bus, panting from running, and paid for their fare. As they sat down in the front, Will realized there weren’t any other people on the bus. It was a weekday, so that was very out of the ordinary.

“Pretty slow day today, huh?” the bus driver began once he started driving.

Troy and Will looked over at him, a little surprised by the sudden small talk.

“I guess,” Troy replied quickly, “do you live around here?”

The bus driver shook his head.

“No, I live in the next town over. I guess this place must have a holiday or something going on, all the stops here have been empty. Except for this one, I guess.”

Will glanced at Troy, sharing a knowing look, then turned back to the bus driver.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Will murmured.

The conversation didn’t continue, and they drove silently to the next stop, which was empty, and then continued.

It _was_ weird, Will thought, even after ten minutes not a single person showed up to get on the bus. For a weekday, especially during the summer, that was unheard of. Will knew the reason everyone was gone, or at least most people, but even so, staring at the lonely bus stop knowing no one would come made Will uneasy.

The bus pulled into the stop right next to the mall, and Will hadn’t understood why the stop was so close or why they had to add another stop when the mall was built until now.

“Are you two meeting friends or something?” The bus driver asked as they got off.

“Yeah that’s it, we’re meeting friends.” Will smiled softly over his shoulder at the driver, then dragged Troy by the wrist to the mall.

The bus drove away, and Will genuinely hoped the bus driver would stay believing the whole town was celebrating a holiday. The mall parking lot was actually pretty full, but it also looked like the cars had been there for a while judging by the rainwater sitting on the roofs and dripping down the windows. Will and Troy navigated through the parking lot and towards the entrance, not a single person around except them.

Will took a deep breath and opened the doors to the mall, he had to push them because the automatic part of the automatic doors wasn’t working.

The mall was in even worse shape inside. It was mostly dark, except for a few overhead signs from the stores, a few emergency ceiling lights, and the morning sunlight pouring from the skylights. The stores were all open, no doors shut or metal covers over them, but the lights were all off so it still seemed like the place was closed. Some fake plants had blown over onto the walkway, and there was trash everywhere like a hurricane had come in. The sign of the store next to them buzzed and flickered occasionally, the electronic ‘we’re open’ sign reflected on the ground.

“What happened here?” Troy asked.

“I have no idea, the rest of the town looks fine, just empty, this place though...” Will mused, looking around the mall that got worse the longer he looked.

There was a puddle of water in front of them, and Will realized that one of the skylights was broken, a gaping hole in it must have allowed the rain from last night in.

“I really doubt Robin’s here,” Troy muttered, looking over at Will.

“I doubt it, but… something’s off here, I think it’s worth checking out,” Will turned to Troy, “is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I think we should look around too.”

“Alright, stay close to me, we don’t know if there are shapeshifters here, or what caused this, so we should be careful,” Will explained as the sign next to them flickered again.

“Okay, got it,” Troy nodded, gripping his shovel which Will just realized he was holding.

“I can’t believe you brought that,” Will said, exasperated.

“It’s the only weapon I have! I don’t have weird fire hands!”

Will sighed.

“I guess, but-” The sign next to them buzzed loudly and after a few more pitiful flickers turned off completely.

Will wasn’t sure if he screamed or if it was Troy, maybe both of them, but they both leaped away from the store like it would burn them.

“God, it’s just the light,” Will hissed.

“Well I feel like we have a reason to be jumpy,” Troy replied, whispering too despite how they were talking normally before the light burnt out.

“Ugh, whatever, let’s keep walking,” Will huffed.

Troy and Will wandered through the mall, it got more decrepit the further they went in. One store’s window was completely shattered and the pieces of glass were all over the floor. There was a mannequin in the middle of the mall playground, and neither of them had any idea how it got there. It got darker the further they walked too, even the emergency lights were shut off in some areas.

“Will,” Troy prompted at some point as Will looked inside a bookstore because he swore he saw something move.

“Yeah?” Will called.

“Do you think these things are like bees?”

“What? Pollinators?”

“ _No_ , like they have a queen or something? Like, what if there’s a bigger, smarter one commanding all the others?”

Will paused, then turned around to glance at Troy.

“I mean, I guess it’s possible. Why do you ask?”

“Well I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like these things really have a plan and yet they all act pretty similar like they have someone telling them what to do.”

Will picked up a book absentmindedly, and looked around the store again.

“Like last year, when the Mind- the Mindflavor or whatever you called it-”

“Mindflayer”

“Yeah, that, like how it controlled all those dog things?”

“You think the Mindflayer is involved here too?” Will asked, stomach dropping.

“No,  _I_ don’t think so, but you’re the expert here.”

Will shook his head, put the book back down on the counter.

“I don’t think so either, it’s not calculated enough. Like you said, it does seem like these things have a similar goal or something, but they’re so unorganized and disastrous that it doesn’t seem like they’re being mind controlled at all, just like they have a common leader or something.” Will turned around, certain that he hadn’t actually seen anything. “Maybe they are like bees.”

“Will!” Troy shouted, looking at something behind him.

Will knew what was happening before he even turned around. He whipped around and saw a shapeshifter, bigger than he had ever seen, standing behind him and roaring. It had an extra two legs and there were spikes sticking out from its neck, matching the ones running down its spine. Will tripped over a display of books as he backed up, landing on the floor. The creature tore over the counter, and Will briefly wondered how it fit back there in the first place. It knocked over the cash register and sent books flying as it stomped to Will.

Will raised his hands and fire soared towards the creature, and it stumbled back onto the counter as it burned, screeching and roaring. He was able to stand up and run out of the store to Troy, and they both back up to the median as they watched the shapeshifter burn alive.

“God, how did it even get in there? That thing was huge.” Will murmured, realizing that he and Troy were huddled together.

Troy shook his head.

“I don’t know,” Troy paused, looking down at Will, “should we keep going?”

Will pulled away from Troy, slightly, leaning back to get a better look at the fiery mess inside the bookstore.

“Yeah, I think we should. I have a weird feeling about this place, and if nothing else, I’d just like to check it off the list I think.” Will explained.

“Alright, that’s a good enough reason for me, let’s go then,” Troy broke away from Will and the two of them kept walking.

They were doing a pretty good job of sticking together, even when one walked away they always stayed where the other could seem them. Sometimes Troy would stray behind or go into a storefront randomly, sometimes Will would walk too far ahead or take a turn without telling Troy, but they were doing okay.

At least that’s what Will thought. They found another store with a broken front window, and despite Will trying to talk him out of it, Troy picked up a shard of glass. It cut his hand, of course, and shimmery black blood dripped down from his palm. He smiled at Will apologetically, then slipped out of its disguise and into a creature twice Will’s size, scales and spikes all over, huge black mouth gaping.

“God damn it! We were being so careful!” Will cursed.

He was barely able to dodge the creatures long, heavy claw, and it caught him on the side of his chest, leaving a deep cut. The shapeshifter lifted its powerful arm again, ready for another strike. Will sheltered his head with one hand and stuck the other out to set the monster aflame as it charged at him. Will looked up from his cowering position and watched as the shapeshifter threw itself to the ground with a thunderous crash and shrieked ungodly, writhing on the floor.

Once it had fallen still and silent, Will tiptoed over and kicked its head cautiously.

“Shit,” he huffed, “where’s the real one then?” Will hissed, placing his hand on the cut and pulling it away covered in blood. “Ow, God, that hurts,”

He looked around, hoping Troy would walk out of a storefront. Unfortunately, Will had no such luck. He had no idea when he lost the real Troy, but he hoped Troy was still somewhere in the mall and hadn't been dragged off by one of these things.

Will trudged through the mall, upset at having lost Troy somewhere and being all by himself now. He wandered around the mall for a while, looking for Troy, moping about being alone when he heard someone call his name. He turned around and saw Troy running across the mall over to Will.

“What the hell?” Will asked, even though it was probably both of their faults for losing each other.

“I have been following someone that was not you for twenty minutes now!” Troy shouted, there was a new scratch that was bleeding on his chin, and there was a splatter of black blood staining the sweatshirt he was wearing.

“I assume you got it?” Will nodded at the stain.

Troy sighed and lifted up his shovel, which was dripping pitch black liquid onto the floor.

“Yeah I got it,” Troy looked Will up and down, “did you run into one too?”

Will nodded, looking down at the cut on his chest.

“Yeah, it looked just like you. I took care of it though,”

“Did it scratch you?”

“Yeah kinda, it’s fine.”

Troy took a step closer and glanced at the gash across Will’s chest.

“Are you okay? That looks bad.”

“You’ve been cut up by these things like twenty times, I’ll be fine.”

Troy looked up at Will, smiling apologetically, which reminded Will of the shapeshifter he had just lit on fire.

“Let’s try not to do that again,” Will laughed lightly, brushing some dust or something out of Troy’s hair.

“Yeah, let’s not,” Troy said, half paying attention, eyes following Will’s hand. His face had gotten all red, and his eyes were really wide.

“Alright let’s go,” Will pulled Troy along since he was pretty sure Troy would just stand there if he didn’t.

They kept walking through the mall, and as an extra precaution, Will kept a hold on Troy’s wrist so neither of them could wander off without taking the other person with them. Of course, eventually Will had to let go of Troy, he swears it was just for a second, but when he turned around Troy was gone. Again.

“Why? Why does this keep happening!?” Will groaned, putting his face in his hands. He looked around, thinking Troy couldn’t have gotten far and saw him in the store next to the one Will was in.

“Hey! What happened to 'let's stick together'? I let go of you for one second and you-”

Troy turned around, the cut on his chin had miraculously healed, and the spot on his sweatshirt was gone.

“Again? Really?” Will shouted, running out of the store.

Troy fluidly transformed into a huge, angry red creature, that smashed through the store window, snarling at Will. Will raised his hands in front of his head to shield himself from the flying shards of glass and peeked through his fingers to see the monster running toward Will. He closed his eyes and blindly, fire sprang from his hands.

When he opened his eyes again the shapeshifter was howling and turning in frantic circles as it caught on fire, throwing a bench over and smashing the other window of the store.

Will climbed up on the median, panting in the fake foliage, watching as the creature slowly died on the tile floor, an obsidian puddle surrounded it.

These past three shapeshifters they had seen had been bigger than all the other before, and Will worried that maybe they all getting older, and they wouldn’t face the little baby monsters anymore, but adult creatures with full sets of teeth and two extra legs.

Will jumped when he heard screaming, and immediately knew it was Troy, he clambered over the median and ran across the mall, noticing Troy on the second floor trying and failing to hit the massive shapeshifter tailing him with his shovel.

Will ran up the escalator (which had really just been rendered into stairs with the recent events) and slid across the floor to where Troy was scrambling to back away from the creature, which was looming over him.

“Troy!” Will called, warning Troy to get out of the way.

The shapeshifter turned its head, drool dripping from its immense mouth, as Will ran over. He skidded to a stop just in front of the monster, and as his feet struggled to stop him from sliding fire rushed out from his open hands at the shapeshifter.

Troy stumbled out of the way just in time as the flaming creature stomped its feet on the ground and spun in circles, eventually crashing into the glass railings and falling over the edge of the second story onto the floor below.

Will ran over to Troy, helping him to his feet.

“Oh my God thank you,” Troy rushed out, there was dirt on his face.

“What the hell? Again?” Will asked much louder than he intended. He was speaking fast, which he blamed on how jumpy he was, which probably came from the adrenaline.

“I just saw something in a store so I let go for just a second and went in, and then after like thirty seconds I came back out and couldn’t find you! So I just walked around trying to find you and I saw you on the second floor so I went up there but it obviously wasn’t really you and here we are.” Troy rambled.

Will sighed, holding Troy’s arms.

“I went into a store too and I looked away for one second and then there was a shapeshifter in your place again, and then I heard you screaming and here we are.”

“God, they’ve really stepped up their game huh?”

“Yeah,” Will nodded.

They both walked over to the edge of the second story looking over onto the body of the shapeshifter, smoldering and covered with glass shards. It was definitely dead.

“Let’s go, there’s nothing up here,” Troy said, looking around, “I don’t think so anyway, it seems pretty empty.”

“I feel like we should double check,” Will muttered, glancing at Troy.

“What?”

“I just- how did you get dirt on your face? We’re indoors.”

“I don’t know! I was just attacked by a supernatural being and _that’s_ what you want to ask me? Why my face is dirty?”

“I was just wondering,”

“It pushed me on the ground! Where dirt is! That’s probably it!”

Will shook his head, but still worriedly looked at Troy.

“You’re fine other than that though?”

“Yeah, I mean, I think so. Are you okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine, let’s keep looking around,” Will grabbed Troy’s wrist and started walking again.

After walking around the upper floor for a little while, Will spoke again.

“I’m glad you’re okay though,”

“Why? Were you _worried_ about me?” Troy mocked, walking a little faster so he was right next to Will.

“Don’t make me regret saving your life, Harrington.”

Troy grinned, jogged a step or two to keep up with Will.

They kept going, occasionally poking around abandoned storefronts and restaurants in the food court. They came across another shapeshifter at some point, but it was smaller and Troy was able to hit it over the edge of the second story with his shovel. It crashed into the water fountain as it fell through the air, so they didn't see a need to make sure it was dead.

Will was still pulling around Troy by his wrist because it seemed like every time he let go for even two seconds Troy disappeared and was subsequently replaced. At some point Troy’s hand slipped down from Will’s wrist into Will’s hand, so they were essentially just holding hands. Will didn’t mind, he felt like he shouldn’t be embarrassed about holding Troy’s hand in a monster-infested abandoned mall, least of all after they had already kissed. It was kinda nice though, Will thought, it was comforting having Troy so close to him and knowing he was there.

They had already explored the whole second floor, only finding decrepit storefronts and the completely decimated food court (the Hot Dog On A Stick sign had completely fallen on the floor).

“Do you think we should come up with a name for these things?” Troy asked as they walked around the second floor.

“I don’t know, do you?” Will replied, kicking a fallen plastic plant off to the side.

“I don’t think I could come up with anything. What about you?”

“Me neither, Dustin always names the monsters...” Will trailed off, he had forgotten about Dustin again, but talking about him made Will think of that thing that had looked a lot like Dustin pounding on his door at four in the morning and then trying to eat him.

They didn’t continue that conversation.

Troy and Will were walking down the escalator when Troy interrupted the silence they were under again.

“Will, remember what I said the day we went camping with Heather? How these things probably have a nest?”

“Yeah?”

“I think this place  _is_ that nest.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, we’ve seen bigger and more of those shapeshifters here than any place before. This whole mall is in terrible shape, it’s way worse than the rest of the town. It makes sense, this mall is connected to the woods which connects us to where we’ve seen them otherwise, it’s new, and everything that’s happened today just proves my point further.”

Will paused at the bottom of the escalator, thinking. It did make sense, the state the mall was in, the sheer number of shapeshifters running around, it was more than they had ever seen in one place before.

“I guess that’d make sense, but where are all the people? And there _has_ to be more shapeshifters than just the ones we’ve seen, where are they?” Will asked.

“I don’t know, but maybe if we keep looking we’ll find something helpful,” Troy replied, glancing around the mall then turning back to Will.

Will nodded, gripping Troy’s hand tighter and walked off to the part of the mall they hadn’t been yet. The back part of the mall was the roughest looking, very few lights were on, there were trash and debris everywhere, the tile was cracked in one area. As they got closer, a door to the basement of the mall was open.

“That’s weird,” Will stated, looking down the stairwell.

“Yeah, maybe someone left it open in their hurry to leave or something?” Troy suggested.

Will gave him a skeptical look and they both started down the concrete steps.

There was a single light buzzing and flickering above them in the stairwell, lighting the concrete hall ominously pale as the two of them carefully climbed down the steps. As they got to the bottom, they noticed discarded items thrown all around the floor. A refrigerator here, a rectangular freezer flipped upside down in the middle of the floor, a stack of ceiling lights propped against one wall. The basement was only lit up by a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. There were supposed to be three, but two had gone out. There were meaningless letters and numbers spray painted in black on the wall, cracks slithering down the concrete, weird stains covering the floor. It was much colder in the basement, and there seemed to be a breeze coming from somewhere, Will shivered from the sudden temperature change. There was a musty scent in the air, and it felt damp as they made their way through the dungeon-like basement.

They hadn’t gotten very far when they heard footsteps coming towards them.

Troy and Will pushed their backs together, Will raising his hands and Troy lifting his shovel slightly.

The person walked into the light, raising their hand to shield their eyes as they took careful steps towards Will and Troy. It was Robin, covered in bruises and grime, her uniform tattered and dirty. She had lost her hat, and her straw hair was sticking up like solar flares from her head, hairs flying into her face.

“Robin?” Will gawked. He was certain she wouldn’t still be here.

“What are you guys doing here?” She asked, limping over to them, cradling her wrist to her chest like it was hurt.

“What are _you_ doing here? How did you stick around this long?” Will asked, completely shocked.

“I just kinda got stuck here, I didn’t think anyone was left…” she murmured, clenching her wrist tighter.

Troy remained silent, staring at Robin skeptically. He glanced at Will and nudged him.

“What?” Will hissed.

“That’s not her,” Troy whispered back.

Will dismissed Troy’s concern and turned back to her. She didn’t have a single cut on her, but everything else seemed normal.

“Robin, we think this place is the nest of those shapeshifter things,” Will explained.

“Yeah, I know,” her tone dramatically shifted, her voice dropped low.

She glanced at the ground, letting her head hang, then turned her gaze back to Will, a glint in her eye. Will’s fingertips tingled, his nerves lit up, a sharp chill ran through him.

“You’re not really Robin,” He told her, point blank.

Troy turned to Will sharply, giving him a surprised look.

Robin smiled easily, turning her eyes back to the ground.

“Oh really? I’m not?” She asked coyly.

“No, you haven’t been this whole time, not when we first saw you, not now.” Troy jumped in, stepping a little in front of Will.

She let her head slip further to the side, so it was just brushing her shoulder, her smile turned teasing, her eyes narrowed at Troy. There was a tense beat of silence, then Robin straightened, letting the arm she was carefully pressing against her chest snap back violently behind her. She lifted her arms in a simple shrug, her smile never leaving her face.

“Well, you figured me out. You made it! Congratulations,” she grinned, uncanny and taunting, at both of them.

“I didn’t think you’d make it this far, to be honest. I never considered either of you a threat, but I guess I should have suspected that he did something to you last year, I should have anticipated some of him still kicking around in your system,” she continued, pointing a perfectly manicured nail at Will.

“How did you get here?” Will barked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice by being excessively loud.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry, you shut the- the, um door or whatever-”

“Gate,” Will snapped.

“Gate. You shut it, I was just able to sneak through before you did. The fact that nothing else can shove its way over here makes this place even better for us. It’s _so_ cold there, so crowded, we’re really at a disadvantage. Here though,” her smile grew, her eyes became sinister, “there’s no _real_ threat.

“I just figured we’d start over here, I’m the only crucial part, I was able to restart. We haven’t had real traction until now, and we won’t be able to progress much more until after winter, but wow this is going much better than I really hoped for.”

“So you’re like, the queen then?” Troy was faltering, his voice shook a little, and he was backing up into Will.

“Sure, if you want to put it that way, sure I am,” She took a step towards them, putting one foot out and drawing an imaginary swirl on the ground.

“I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting you to make it this far,” Robin looked at Troy, smile slipping a little, “I mean, sure, he has the pyrokinesis going for him, and the bits of our atmosphere still kicking around his system and running in his blood. But you? I don’t see how you could have survived this, you’re just an average kid. Frankly, you’re kind of a moron, I’m shocked.”

“I’m scrappy,” Troy retorted, raising his shovel and pouncing forward to try to swing it at her, but he was knocked to the side by a hulking claw sweeping from behind them.

A shapeshifter bigger than they had ever seen before towered over Troy as he tried to stand back up, placing Troy under one of its massive claws. It growled lowly, glaring at Will.

“I wouldn’t try anything, I’ve really got the upper hand.” Robin grinned, lowering her arm from where it was raised, fingers still in a snapping position.

Will stared at Troy from where he was being pinned down by the creature’s arm, they made quick fearful eye contact and Will’s stomach sank. He whipped back around to face Robin, hands burning as he clenched his fists.

“Let him go!” He shouted at her, summoning all the courage he had left.

“Aw, you’re cute. I know you’ve made it really far but I've had experience dealing with things like you. I would almost listen to you if he was still puppeting you around like a sad meatsuit, but you’re all by yourself. You’ve got some fancy fire hands, just a little spit of spite left in you, but I’m not scared of you. I’m a little impressed but, you’re no threat.” Robin gloated, sticking her hands in her skirt pockets and twisting from side to side. “No, he’ll be fine though. It’s just like a long nap until winter, that turns into an endless nap.”

“What are you going to do to them in winter!?” Will snarled, holding his fists in front of him.

“Them? You’re acting like you’re not a part of this!” Robin chuckled, swaying side to side, “Winter isn’t so great for us, our old environment used to have such long winters, we really struggled to get enough food to last through them. Here though, it’s much shorter, and there are even places with virtually no winter whatsoever, that’s where we’re trying to go.”

“What, so you’re going to retire to Florida?” Troy snarked from where he was laying on the ground. Robin frowned at him, and Troy’s soft laughter turned into coughs as the shapeshifter pinning him down pushed his foot harder on him.

“Troy!” Will barked, throwing his hands up in the air, “Seriously?”

“I thought it was funny,” Troy wheezed.

“You’re going to eat them?” Will shouted at Robin, turning back to her.

“Yeah, that’s the plan,”

Will glanced over at Troy, trying to figure out what to do next. Troy looked up at the creature standing on his chest and then nodded at Will.

Will made a run for it, sliding across the concrete floor to the monster standing on top of Troy, fire flying out of his hands. The creature screamed, jumping back on its hind legs and hitting its head harshly on the ceiling above it. It stilled and fell back onto the ground with a violent thud, rubble, and chunks of concrete falling all around it. The creature was still burning, even if it was already still.

Robin frowned at the dusty, fiery mess in front of her, and chewed on her lower lip.

“Well there really was no reason to do that,” She murmured, wringing her hands.

Will grabbed Troy, who had scooted back against the wall and had only narrowly avoided a flying piece of gravel.

Robin sighed, dropping her hands, clenching and unclenching her fists.

“I guess I’ll have to do it myself, just like everything else,” she let her hands hang heavy to her side, rolled her shoulders and sank her head.

She glanced up at Will through her mussed hair and gave him one final, casual, amused smile. Then her body seemed to be swallowed up as an enormous shapeshifter took her place, her head brushing the ceiling above her. It had ten legs, each leg at least twice the size of Will, its face was giant, its gaping mouth like a cave, it roared so loudly everything shook. The sheer size of the creature made Will’s stomach drop, each tooth in its mouth was the size of his head. Eight of its legs were planted on the ground, the other two were posed in the air, five of its pitch black eyes were focused on Will, the other five on Troy. It looked like a spider and a lizard had combined into a single monstrosity that was the size of Will’s house. The size of two of Will’s houses stacked on top of each other.

“Holy fuck,” Troy cursed, backing up against the wall, “it’s huge!”

“Yeah, it’s the _queen_ , that’s kinda the point!” Will shouted back at Troy.

“I don’t think I’m just going to be able to hit it over the head with a shovel,” Troy mumbled, Will almost didn’t hear him.

Will jumped out of the way as Robin (or what used to be Robin) stomped its foot down right by Will, crunching concrete under its heavy claws. It spun around in a messy circle, smacking Troy with its trunk-like spike covered tail and sent him flying across the room.

“Troy!” Will yelled, watching as Troy skidded across the concrete floor with a painful scraping noise.

He watched Troy sit back up with a struggle, clutching his arm which had the cloth ripped off it and was leaking crimson blood down onto the chalky ground beneath him.

Will snapped his head back to Robin, the last bits of courage boiling into volatile anger seething just beneath his skin. He sprinted over to the shapeshifter, fingers radiating red hot energy as he clenched his fists, stopping just in front of what used to be Robin. The heat that was balling up in his hands burst through into the air, surrounding his fists in flames as he stood glaring at Robin. He charged toward it, the fire he held carefully in his fists growing bigger and bigger as he ran.

The creature screeched, spit flying as it ran at Will. It raised a huge arm the size of a tree and struck Will into the wall with such force Will felt like he blacked out for a minute.

When Will hit the wall there was a loud crack, and he heard someone screaming (it was probably Troy, he thought) as he fell to the ground. His eyes were screwed shut, blinding pain was radiating from his leg, it got worse with every beat of his heart.

Eventually, he found it in himself to open his eyes again, and the first thing he saw was the creature crawling to Troy, who was backing up into a corner, crawling on his hands. Will looked down at this leg, blood was seeping out, forming a puddle underneath him. There was white thing sticking out, and his leg was twisted in a weird angle. Will felt a shock of disgust and fear shoot through him, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be too worried about it.

He painstakingly adjusted himself so he was sitting up, watching as the shapeshifter shuffled its massive form closer to Troy, growling. Will shouted to catch the thing’s attention, fire coursing through his nerves and pooling in his fingers.

“Hey! Asshole! Over here!”

The creature turned around, whipping its giant head on its long neck around almost in a full circle. It pulled the rest of its body around too, its growl grew louder, as it pulled a foot back in preparation for its pounce. It bounded over to Will, gaining speed quickly. It stopped just in front of Will, letting out a deafening roar that blew Will’s hair with its force.

Will screamed back, vociferous and ringing with resentment, the anger he had been saving up this whole time (his whole life maybe) rising to the surface and lighting up his skin.

He was angry about not being able to have a normal life, about having his childhood ripped away from him, about having to give up his chance at a safe and fun summer just to deal with these fucking monsters. Will was so pissed about _everything,_ about having to deal with all of this that he shouldn’t have to deal with, about his friends treating him either like a bomb about to blow or a fragile doll that would shatter with a single tap, about how even though his friends babied him he still missed them and hated that they were taken by these shapeshifters to be eaten during the winter and about all the pain everything from that fucking cursed dimension brought to all the people in the town who didn’t deserve it.

Will was so infuriated, the furiosity bubbled like sulfur in his veins and completely blacked out any other emotion he could have felt.

Robin opened her gaping mouth as wide as it could, teeth unsheathing themselves from her gums like swords and twisting in circles around her mouth like spinning blades.

Will felt the choleric flames building like a pyre in his hands, the turbulent anger boiling in his bloodstream.

An inferno exploded from his palms, more fire than he had ever started, it raced to the shapeshifter, spreading quickly inside its claret colored mouth. The fire burnt the flesh black, the monster dashed backward immediately, tripping over its feet.

It let out a shriek that sounded like a barn owl, but ten times louder and with a sinister undercurrent cutting through it. It lifted its head, its neck stretching at least three times as long as it had been before, launching the creature’s head through the ceiling. Thick chunks of concrete debris fell from the sky like lead hail, the basement walls echoing every shriek and meaty thud and violent crunch of concrete on concrete that sounded. The shapeshifter thrashed around, throwing its scorching head around like a ball on a string, screaming with everything it had left.

Its neck receded back into itself, all ten of its eyes focused back on Will, who hadn’t faltered at all. It charged at him, copper mouth like an oven, screeching and clattering all of its claws against the ground. It stopped just ten feet in front of Will, lifting its head high in the air in a final scream of agony before falling to the ground with a tremendous crash that sent concrete pieces flying.

The black dripped from its eyes as they turned a ghost white, inky blood forming a midnight puddle around the smoking body, its mouth still held open.

There was a feeling of finality that rushed through Will.

Will panted, staring at the mess in front of him. He didn’t even know he could do that, didn’t know he had that much pent up anger, didn’t know he had that much power stored in him.

He leaned over, trying to find Troy. He saw him stand up on the other side of the monster, a cut on his forehead dripping blood down his face, one of his eyes was turning red.

“Holy shit Will!” He shouted, grinning. He ran over to Will, almost tripping twice in his hurry.

“That was fucking awesome!” He gushed, breathless, pushing some hair off his forehead.

Will smiled coyly and pretended to blow smoke off his index finger.

Troy smiled wider, breath hitching a little. He suddenly looked serious when he noticed Will’s leg. “Holy shit man your bone is sticking out,”

Will looked down at it and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah I guess it is. I think I’m okay though, the adrenaline might be taking over,”

“Or maybe you’re in fucking shock, we gotta get you to a hospital,” Troy told Will as he walked behind him, lifting his arms up.

“Yeah, but how are we-” A shapeshifter crashed through the ceiling suddenly, smashing a hole in the ceiling and landing in a dead heap just in front of Will and Troy. If Troy hadn’t pulled Will out of the way, he might have gotten crushed by the massive carcass that just fell through the ceiling.

“Oh God, oh God what the fuck just happened?” Will panicked, the untouchable feeling he had gotten earlier had fled, and now he was just an injured little kid in a basement surrounded by monsters without their leader.

“I don’t know, but it’s definitely dead,” Troy leaned over to look at it, sticking his foot out cautiously.

There were more loud thuds throughout the basement, the sound of bodies hitting the floor. Troy and Will shared a quick worried glance.

“We should probably go,”

“Oh most definitely,” Will paused, looking at his leg, which was still bleeding, “how am I going to get out of here though?”

“I can carry you,” Troy shrugged like it was no big deal.

“Uh, no offense but I don’t really want to be dropped down the stairs,”

“I won’t drop you! You probably don’t weigh very much, it’ll be fine,”

“I still don’t-” Troy interrupted Will by scooping him off the ground and holding him bridal style.

Will looked up at Troy wide-eyed.

“This works.” He stuttered.

“Wow, you really don’t weigh that much. No wonder that thing could fling you so hard against the wall, you’re like a twig,”

“Shut up,” Will muttered, rolling his eyes.

He could feel the blush crawling over his face as he wrapped his arms around Troy’s neck hesitantly, hopefully making it harder for Troy to drop him. Will was still worried about that happening even if Troy didn’t think it was a problem.

“Okay, God, your leg is bleeding a lot. Should we do that thing where we tie something around it?” Troy worried as he went back up the basement steps.

“Tourniquet,” Will supplied. 

“Yeah, tourniquet,”

Will looked at his leg, there  _was_ a lot of blood.

“Maybe, what would we use?”

“I don’t know, we’re in a mall, I’m sure we could find something,”

“They probably have a first aid kit around here somewhere,” Will was maybe feeling a little woozy, but he was sure it was fine.

Troy walked into a random clothing store and stopped in front of a display with socks on it.

“What? A sock?”

“Anything cloth will work if you tie it tight enough right?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never been in this situation before!”

Troy rolled his eyes.

“Alright, you kinda have to be my arms because I don’t want to drop you,”

“This is shoplifting,”

“There’s no one here! This is an emergency! You’re not going to get in trouble!”

Will huffed and begrudgingly grabbed the socks off the display and held them to his chest.

“Alright see? We’re good,” Troy turned around and they walked out of the store, without any alarms going off because of the kind of looting.

(Did it even count as looting? Maybe? Will wasn’t sure.)

As they walked around the mall, there were bodies of shapeshifters everywhere. They seemed to have just dropped dead because Will and Troy didn’t recognize killing any of them. There were hundreds spread around the mall, all laying on the ground in awkward positions like they had been dropped there. There weren’t any signs of injury on any of them, but they were all dead on the floor anyway.

“What do you think happened to them?” Troy asked as he stepped over a smaller shapeshifter.

“I don’t know,” Will murmured, leaning on Troy’s chest, “I think maybe since the queen died all of them died?”

“I guess, that’s stupid though. If you rely too much on a queen then the whole species dies.”

“Yeah, but I can’t think of anything else that could have happened,”

“Troy!!” Someone shouted from behind them.

Troy flinched and turned around, clutching Will a little tighter.

A little girl was running down the hallway, brown curly hair cut near her chin, bangs flying everywhere.

“Diane!” Troy shouted, grinning.

As Diane ran closer Will noticed she only had one shoe, her shirt and skirt were covered in dirt, and she was missing an earring.

“Troy! What are you doing here?” She asked as she got closer, jumping clumsily over a shapeshifter’s body lying on the floor.

“What are _you_ doing here?”

“I don’t know, I just woke up here. I walked up here from that basement room and thought I heard you so I ran over. You talk really loud you know,” She rambled childishly, twisting the hair tie on her wrist, “who are you carrying?”

Troy and Will looked at each other.

“He’s my friend,” Troy stumbled.

“ _Why_ are you carrying him?”

“Can’t you see his leg, Diane? It’s all broken and gross, he can’t walk, obviously!”

Diane rolled her eyes, and suddenly Will saw the resemblance.

Then she turned to Will, smiling.

“Can I touch your leg?” She asked casually.

“No! No, you can’t touch his leg! It’s broken and you can’t ask people those things!” Troy shouted, taking a step back from her.

“At least I _asked_!” She countered.

“No! Just, go find mom and dad.”

“I don’t want to! I want to stay with you guys!” Diane whined.

“You can’t stay with us, you have to go find an adult. Go get mom and dad! Now!” Troy told her, pointing back behind her.

“Ugh _fine_ ,” Diane groaned, dragging her feet as she walked back the way she came.

She paused, and glared at Troy over her shoulder, then kept stomping away with her hands in her pockets.

“I’m sorry, she’s a brat sometimes,” Troy muttered, turning back around.

Will laughed.

“You two are definitely related,”

“Hey! I’m not like her at all,”

Will raised his eyebrows at Troy.

“Yeah, sure you’re not,”

“Shut up,” Troy scoffed, smiling.

They kept walking throughout the mall, and Will was only getting more tired. He couldn’t tell if it was because he had lost (or was losing) so much blood or if it was because he had tired himself out with that whole outburst earlier.

“Should we use this?” Will asked, lifting up the socks they had gotten.

“Maybe. Can you do it by yourself? If not we’ll have to wait until I can put you down somewhere and-”

“I can _do it_ ,” Will retorted, and ripped one sock off the cardboard it was attached to. He tied it as tight as he could above his leg, hissing and flinching occasionally in pain.

“Are you okay?” Troy would ask, every time when Will made a noise.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Will would say every time.

Will had just finished tying the sock around his leg when someone shouted Troy’s name from behind them.

“Troy! Look who I found!” It was Diane, back again, towing Steve behind her by the hand.

“What the hell?” Steve barked at them, running over and reversing their roles by pulling Diane along instead of her pulling him.

“Hey Steve,” Troy greeted nervously.

“What happened? What is Will doing here?”

“He’s just been-”

“It’s a long story,” Will jumped in.

“What happened to your leg?” Steve asked, voice getting higher every time he spoke.

“You can’t touch it, I already asked,” Diane interrupted.

Steve looked between Troy, Will, and Diane in a flabbergasted circle.

“Should I take you to a hospital?” He finally stuttered out.

“Yes, yes you should,” Troy agreed.

“Alright, my car is here so if we just-”

“Why is your car here?” Troy asked.

“Because I work here dumbass! Why wouldn’t my car be here!?”

“You need to calm down,”

“Will’s fucking bone is out of his leg! How am I supposed to be calm about that!?”

Diane gasped and covered her ears, grinning wickedly at Steve.

“Steve said a bad word!” She cheered.

“Watch your language,” Troy scolded jokingly.

“Shut up! We’re going to the hospital because you both look like victims of a bear attack, and Will’s bone is sticking out of his _freaking_ leg!” Steve snapped, and grabbed Diane’s hand and pulled her along with him.

“Come on Diane,”

“Steve said a bad word!” Diane repeated, skipping.

They walked out into the parking lot, where Steve was able to find his car remarkably quickly. Will was having trouble staying upright, his limbs were starting to get heavy, and as they walked to the car Will found himself leaning on Troy’s chest more and more. He really hoped he didn’t become unconscious until they got to the hospital, Troy and Steve would have complete breakdowns.

They set up Will in the back seat with Troy, buckling him in sideways and propping his legs up on Troy’s lap. Diane got to sit in the front seat, which she was very excited about.

Steve started the car and drove off, and Will was very thankful that the hospital was actually not technically in Hawkins so it probably wouldn’t be empty.

He tried to keep himself present by looking out the window and tapping his fingers on his leg, but he was slipping off. His leg was hurting even worse now, and he kept clenching his jaw from the pain.

“I know why you look familiar!” Diane exclaimed suddenly, turning around in her seat despite Steve’s protests.

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“You’re that kid that died and came back to life!”

“Diane!” Troy yelled as Steve grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back down into the seat.

“I think you’re thinking of Jesus,” Steve said, keeping one hand pressed on her shoulder.

“I’m not! I’m right!” She argued, shoving Steve’s hand off her. “That’s him! He was everywhere, there were flyers, he was on TV, dad kept talking about him and Troy got all weird,” she continued, defending herself, thinking that Steve and Troy were denying that these events happened.

Will raised his eyebrows at Troy when she mentioned the ‘Troy was acting weird’ part, amused. Troy flushed and looked away from Will.

“Diane!” He shouted again, but Diane kept going.

She spun around in her seat again, leaning on the center console, grinning.

“Your face was on my milk carton!” She said with the excitement of someone meeting a celebrity.

“You know what, that was me.” Will nodded, smiling at her tiredly.

Diane’s grin got even bigger, showing a gap on the bottom row of her mouth, and she turned back around, satisfied with that answer. 

* * *

 

When they got to the hospital, all of the shock or adrenaline or whatever had worn off so Will was just feeling horrible.

Getting him out of the car was a whole terrible ordeal, every bump or nudge sent flashes of pain through his leg. He thought he might faint.

Troy continued carrying him, and as they walked into the emergency room Will felt his consciousness slip further under the glare of the fluorescent lights. They went up to the counter, and the woman started asking them questions which Will only half heard.

“I’m pretty sure you can tell what the problem is,” Will muttered, gesturing vaguely to his bloodied leg.

She nodded and gave Steve some instructions that Will couldn’t hear, then she called someone on the phone and a few other nurses came out with a gurney into the hall.

Will hated gurneys, he had never had a good experience on one. This whole situation seemed very reminiscent of the time he had been possessed by a shadow monster and had to go to a makeshift hospital run by a secret government lab. Just thinking about that right now made his head spin.

As Will was being wheeled away, he heard Diane shout as she ran next to him.

“Be careful with him!” She chided, “He’s already died once!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Street smarts!!  
> So that was technically the end of the plot!  
> The next chapter's just going to be epilogue so yeah.  
> What did you guys think? You probably saw that thing with Robin coming, but idk maybe it was too obvious maybe it wasn't obvious enough.  
> Yes, I took sports medicine, can you tell?  
> ALSO Diane is named after my sentret in Pokemon Gold what about it?  
> Anyway, Troy and Will are idiots when they're together. Will is cannonly really smart and since I essentially built Troy's character from the ground up I just added in him being actually smart when he puts in an effort, but when they're around each other every ounce of common sense flies out the window.  
> I just really REALLY want Will to have a "ahhh go crazy ahhh go stupid" moment in season 3 where everything just kinda builds up and he just rightfully gets angry at everything that has happened. I don't think that will happen in this season (maybe at all,) so I wanted to include it here. I just like the idea of Will being angry and strong and being able to overcome everything that's going on. I just like it when Will is able to be the amazing powerful character he deserves to be.  
> Also, I made Robin an edgy lesbian because I love writing edgy lesbians (nevermind the fact that I am one) and I really liked writing that whole confrontational scene.  
> By the way, Only Happy When it Rains? A BOP! I mean all the songs I get the names of chapters from are bops, but this one goes especially hard. I listened to it on repeat during the whole showdown scene.  
> Okay well, I hope you guys liked it! The next chapter WILL be up on July 3rd because damn it I'm going to get this fanfiction finished before season three comes out and it will be late over my dead body.  
> My tumblr as always is burgundy-burgers, feel free to message me or follow me or whatever. Kudos and comments make my whole week, and I really appreciate you all leaving them!  
> Thank you for reading!


	5. In the by-myself mornings the birds windchime, the treelimbs crackle and the sunshine climbs up the sky like pink champagne that glistened in your eyes all day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Air of December- Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians

Heather woke up on the cement floor, a pounding in the back of her head.

She groaned as she sat up, scooping hair out of her eyes. The room was filled with at least a hundred other people, all waking up just like her. It looked like she was in a basement somewhere, but it was hard to tell since there weren’t really distinguishable qualities about it.

She was still in her pajamas, but her hair had fallen out of its ponytail. There was a dried scab on the back of her hand, and some of the blood had dried on her face where she was laying on it. Her shoes were gone, and one sock was rolled down to her ankle while the other was pulled up all the way.

As she looked around, raking a hand through her hair, she noticed someone familiar out of the corner of her eye. She was wiping something off her arm, sitting in a corner by herself.

“Robin?” She asked. “Robin!” she shouted, running over to her, dodging people who were still laying down and some who were just sitting up.

She was so thankful that Robin was here, that she was _safe_ , she couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she ran to her.

Heather stopped just in front of Robin and slid down the wall to sit next to her.

“Hey! You’re here too?” Heather started, grinning at her friend. “Oh my God I was so worried, I was wondering if you were here or if they got to you or-”

“Hey, hey, listen you seem really nice but I don’t know you,” Robin admitted, holding out her hand gently.

“You- you don’t remember me?”

“No, I don’t think we’ve met, I would definitely remember you.”

Heather frowned, fidgeting with a strand of hair around her finger.

“I don’t know how long I’ve been down here, I’m really sorry.” Robin apologized, laying a soft hand on Heather’s thigh.

“A long time, you’ve been here a while.” Heather chuckled and stuck her hand out for Robin to shake. “I’m Heather,”

Robin smiled at her, it was so painfully familiar.

“I’m Robin,” She shook Heather’s hand.

“The one and only,” Heather replied, staring at Robin and holding her hand for a beat longer before breaking apart.

“So you said you knew me?”

“Something like that…”

“Tell me about myself, then.”

Heather grinned, pink dusting her cheeks. She grabbed a strand of her hair again, twisting it between her fingers.

“First of all, if you see a guy named Billy, run.” 

* * *

 

“I just can’t believe you didn’t call me!”

“Will, what part of ‘spontaneous road trip’ don’t you understand?”

Will sighed and ran his hand over his face.

“I just feel like you could have mentioned it to me, or to Lucas! He didn’t know where you were either!”

“Listen, Will, my mom and I made a random decision to go to the Grand Canyon, I didn’t think you needed to know. I really didn’t expect a whole shapeshifter disaster to happen over the course of the week and a half we were gone,” Dustin explained over the phone, laughing a little.

“Yeah, well no one really _expects_ that kind of thing, it just kind of happens.”

“Like a spontaneous road trip.”

Will chuckled, leaned against the wall as he talked on the phone.

“I guess… I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, I heard everyone woke up in the mall basement?”

Will nodded, then realized Dustin was on the phone and couldn’t see him.

“Yeah they stored everyone down there, they were saving them to eat for winter.”

“Jesus,”

“They had a queen, like bees, and the mall was their nest.”

“Bees have hives, don’t they?”

“Well yeah I guess but-”

“Rats have nests, bugs have hives.”

“I really wasn’t concerned with the terminology at the moment to be completely honest with you,”

Dustin sighed, and Will could picture him fidgeting with his hat.

“Well, at any rate, I’m sorry you had to go through all this alone. Taking down a whole shapeshifter society by yourself does not seem like a fun summer activity.”

“I wasn’t by myself,” Will corrected before he could stop himself.

“Oh, you weren’t? I just figured since Mike, Lucas, El, and Max all got taken by shapeshifting monsters, that you didn’t have anyone to go to for this. Who helped you? Your mom? Because I thought you mentioned something about her-”

“Troy helped me,” Will interrupted.

“Troy… as in Troy Harrington?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Our middle school bully? You have got to be kidding me,”

“I’m not,”

“Really? How did that happen?”

“Well,” Will started, voice a little high, “I found him outside his house while I was following one of those things and then we were attacked by a deer and his whole family turned out to be shapeshifters so we-”

“Wait, even Steve?”

“Yeah, they’re brothers.”

Dustin paused, and Will imagined Dustin making the face he always does when he’s thinking on the other side of the phone.

“I saw him before then. This was, what, three weeks ago?”

“Yeah,”

“I saw him the day before I left…”

“I guess you didn’t really,”

The line was quiet again.

“Anyway, we had a stakeout with Heather the lifeguard and then we lost her and it was this whole thing, then we went to the mall and killed the queen together…” Will twisted the phone cord around his finger, “I guess that was more me than him, but he was there.”

“So, what, are you guys friends now?” Dustin asked.

Will shifted his leg on the couch, crossing it over the one in the cast. He scratched at the cast, just over where Troy had signed his name, just under where El had signed hers.

“I guess,” He cleared his throat, “I guess you could say that, yeah.”

“I just can’t believe that happened,”

“Well, you know, no one ever really plans that kind of thing.”

Will heard Dustin sigh.

“Well, listen, I gotta go. I’m hanging out with Lucas soon, I think he thinks I’m mad at him.”

“He does think that yeah.”

“I don’t know why he thinks that,”

“Because you ignore him all the time and it still seems like you’re bitter about him and Max dating maybe?”

“But I’m not though! I’m not still mad about that, and I don’t mean to ignore him. I’m never angry at him, really.”

Now Will sighed. Dustin and Lucas were always running in circles around each other, propelled by miscommunication and poor judgment.

“Then _tell him that_!”

“I will! Don’t worry,”

“Good, it’s annoying watching you both drive each other crazy.”

There was another beat of silence.

“Alright, I gotta go, bye Will."

“Bye Dustin,” Will said fondly, then hung up the phone.

Will sighed, leaning back on the couch which had been placed under the phone for him, and stared out the window, finally feeling better after everything that had happened.

* * *

 

Will was waiting in a hospital bed.

His leg was all bandaged up, but they said they couldn't put the cast on until they did an X-ray, and they couldn't do that until his mother got there.

He had been given some sort of painkiller, he wasn’t sure what kind, but it made everything fuzzy. Less fuzzy than before, but still. He was all by himself, the other half of the room was empty, and a nurse had come and dragged Troy away a little while ago. He wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting in there, but it seemed like a while.

Suddenly he saw something brown and green flash by in the corner of his eyes and was too dizzy to pick up on it being Diane before she was standing right in front of him.

She stared at him and then ran out of the door as quickly as she had come in, making will wonder if he had imagined it.

“He’s in this one!” He heard her shout from outside his door. Then she ran back inside, Troy following in after her.

“Hey,” He greeted, eyes lighting up when he saw Will.

“What’s up?” Will replied, speech a little sloppy.

“I told Diane to go find you while I was getting patched up, and I guess she actually did a good job for once,”

“Hey! I _always_ do a good job at _everything_!”

“Yeah, sure you do,” Troy messed with Diane’s hair, making it even more of a mess than it was before.

Diane stuck her tongue out at him and tried to push his hand away.

“Anyway, how are you doing?”

Will shrugged.

“Okay I guess, everything’s a little blurry, but my leg’s feeling better because I can’t feel it, and they fixed up my uh, the cut on my chest.”

“That’s good, I’m glad you’re okay,” Troy smiled earnestly, “you’re talking funny.”

“I am not,”

“You are, and your eyes are all big. It looks like your pupils are dilated.”

“My pupils are fine, your eyes are weird,”

Troy laughed, and Will noticed the corners of his eyes crinkled. His cheeks were a faint pink and his hair was all over the place, still wildly curly and soft looking. Will’s stomach flipped. Maybe Will was a little loopier than he first thought, he was getting all mushy.

“What happened to your eye?” Will asked, pointing at it. When he raised his hand, it shook.

“They said a blood vessel burst or something like that, I’ll be okay.”

“It looks gross,” His eye had a blood-red stain on it, it looked like someone had poured blood in a bowl of water. The stark redness behind his pupil made the color look weird, lighter than usual.

“Thanks,” Troy joked. He stared at Will, eyes (despite one being kind of janky) soft and loving, everything about him was relaxed despite being in a hospital and covered in cuts and scrapes.

“God, don’t look at me like that,” Will grumbled, and looked away, he could feel himself blushing.

“Like what? I’m not doing anything,”

“You’re looking at me all nice and sappy and it’s making me feel gross.”

Troy only got more affectionate looking, smiling warmly and brushing hair out of his eyes, blushing more.

“I’m sorry,” he laughed.

Will sighed and shifted over as best he could, allowing a small gap on the side of the bed.

“You can come sit with me if you want,” he murmured.

Troy grinned.

“Beat it, Diane,”

“Where am I supposed to go?”

“You can sit in a chair over, uh, over that way,” Will told her, raising a shaky finger over at some chairs in the corner.

“Why can’t I sit on the bed?”

“There’s not enough room, go sit,” Troy told her, climbing onto the bed with Will.

Diane pouted, stomped over to a chair in the corner.

Troy laid down next to Will on the bed, still smiling like an idiot.

Will let a smile slip, he was getting sleepy again. He scooted closer to Troy, resting his chin on Troy’s shoulder.

“You’re being weird,” Troy mumbled into Will’s hair.

“Maybe it’s because I’m on some kind of painkillers and my legs are numb and I like you,”

Troy’s breath hitched, Will could feel it in his hair.

“You’re ridiculous,” Troy laughed.

“You guys are both weird,” Diane complained from across the room, snapping her hair tie against her wrist.

* * *

 

Will had already talked to everyone else since the events of two weeks ago, and everyone was doing okay again.

When Will was taken to the hospital, Troy had told Steve to go back to the mall and get Will’s mom, and then take her to the hospital. They argued a little bit about that, but Will didn’t hear most of it. Troy hung around with Will for a while before being dragged off himself, taking Diane with him.

Will’s mom had gotten there and she freaked out, which was to be expected, but she took it fairly well after the initial shock was over. They got everything fixed and put Will’s leg in a cast, and then he was able to go home.

Will didn’t see Troy for another week after that since Will really couldn’t go anywhere and he assumed Troy was caught up with family things. But during that week he was able to see everyone else, Mike, Max, El, and Lucas. He found out Dustin was on a road trip with his mom through El, who had been watching his cat.

All of them had the same memory of waking up in the basement of the mall, with no idea how they got there.

“I literally hadn’t left my house for like a week,” Mike had said, “and then all of a sudden I was in a basement surrounded by the entire town.”

Everyone had been less than pleased with the fact that Will was kind of friends with Troy now, and Will really wasn’t sure how they would react to the fact that they were a little bit more than that. They had all just assumed Will had done everything by himself, and while he appreciated their faith in him, it’s a ridiculous thing to expect of just one person.

Troy had come over that next week, and then he just kept coming back. Will’s mom got used to him pretty quickly, probably around the third time he came over for non-shapeshifter reasons, but El took a little longer.

El usually came over while Hopper and Will’s mom were at work, and Troy started coming over a lot during that time too, so they kind of ran into each other a lot. Will expected them to get into a fight right away, but El was actually civil and Troy was probably still scared of her, so everything worked out pretty easily.

Presently Will was sitting on the couch watching El play a video game, and Troy had been sitting next to him but had gotten up to go to the bathroom.

“I don’t know what you see in him,” El said once he had gone, still looking at the screen.

“What?”

“I don’t know why out of everyone, you’re dating him.”

“We’re not _dating_ exactly-”

“You are, I’ve seen you kiss him.”

Will scoffed.

“You were _spying_ on me?”

“It’s not spying if it’s happening in a public place,”

“Which was?”

“The living room.”

Will sighed, crossed his working leg over his broken one.

“I mean, it’s not like you really have that much of a say in it,” Will pointed out.

“I guess not, I just thought I’d let you know how I feel. Looking out for you, all that.” El replied, turning around briefly to look at Will and then turning back to the game, “I feel like he hasn’t changed, and I just think you can do better. I don’t know, I’m just worried about you and where this is going.”

“Yeah, thank you, I guess,” Will leaned over to try to see El’s face, “but I know what I’m doing, what I’m getting into, you don’t have to worry about me.”

El shrugged, staring pointedly at the TV.

“Yeah, okay.”

“It’s not really your place, anyway.”

“It’s kinda my place, I think I have a right to worry about you. We’re friends.”

Will smiled softly, resting his chin in his hand.

“I guess so,”

Troy came back into the room and sat on the floor beneath Will, smiling up at him. Will smiled back, brushing hair out of his face. El glanced back behind her, made quick eye contact with Will and then turned back around. She didn’t say anything else, and really, Will appreciated her effort in respecting him and his privacy. He wasn’t sure how everyone else would react, but at least El was being supportive about it. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

* * *

 

“El doesn’t like you,” Will said as they sat on the porch swing by his front door.

The sun was setting, and Troy had lied to his parents and said he was spending the night at James’ house. Will had told Troy he shouldn’t lie to his parents but Troy said it was better this way.

“ _They don’t like you,_ ” he had said, “ _we’re avoiding a whole ordeal here, it’s easier if they don’t know_ ”

“Oh really? I can’t imagine why she doesn’t like me.”

Will smiled teasingly.

“They’ll get used to you, don’t worry. When Lucas even brought up the idea of Max being in the group Mike got really upset and made this whole thing out of it, but look at us now, we’re fine.”

“Yeah but I feel like he has more of a reason to be mad at me besides just not wanting things to change.”

“Yeah sure, but like I said, they’ll get used to you. Forgiveness takes time, I guess, and they’ll be mad at first but they probably will get over it.”

“ _Probably_?”

“Well, I don’t know, hopefully.”

Troy raised his eyebrows at Will.

“It’ll be fine, don’t worry,” Will reassured.

Troy sighed, relaxing his shoulders a little.

“I mean, how did James react when you told him about us dating?”

“We’re dating?” Troy asked, leaning forward a little just to be able to look Will in the eyes.

“I mean yeah, I thought so?” Will squinted at Troy, “Do you not think that?”

“No, I mean I thought we were dating but I wasn’t actually sure, and I wasn’t going to bring it up,” Troy sank back into the cushions on the swing, face flushed, “alright, cool.”

Will looked at Troy with an amused smile.

“You’re really a dork at heart, you know that?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,”

Will leaned on Troy’s shoulder, kicking the swing into motion.

“Anyway, how _did_ James react when you told him?”

“He’s actually a nice person, and a good friend, and he was cool about it. His parents are really nice, I think that’s part of it. He really only followed my lead before, and that’s because he just has no idea what he’s doing most of the time.”

“That’s good, actually. I wasn’t sure about him, I don’t think I’ve ever actually had a normal conversation with him, not counting the shapeshifter version we saw in town.”

Troy hummed, pushed the swing again with his leg.

“Yeah, he’s actually really nice, I think you’d get along. I also think he’d tell you really embarrassing stuff about me so I’m not super thrilled about you two talking to each other.”

“More embarrassing than what I already know about you?”

“Dude you don’t even know the half of it.”

Will laughed.

“There was a very dark period after I realized I liked you that you do not need to hear about,”

“Wow, on the contrary, I would _love_ to hear about that.”

Troy nudged Will, laughing with him.

“I already told you about the time I was kidnapped by a monster that looked like a sunflower, I think it’s only fair,” Will continued.

“What more do you need to hear other than I have liked you since I was seven?”

“I feel like there’s a lot of information missing there.”

Troy smiled at Will, attentive and admiring, swinging them back and forth.

Suddenly Will thought maybe he understood what Troy meant the night they had kissed when Troy confessed to him after Will set a version of himself on fire. About everything feeling like it was in the right place, about being where you’re supposed to be.

In the apricot summer light that made everything honey colored, cicadas hissing and clicking in the trees surrounding them, crickets chiming in the grass, Will thought everything had worked out, and he felt like he could relax for the first time in two years. Everything was in place, and Will was able to feel safe again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHH THAT'S IT GUYS!  
> That is literally the first outlined fanfiction I have ever finished (that's more than three chapters) and I'm so proud of myself! Yeah! And I got it done before season 3 came out! Hell Yeah!  
> In other news, I'm so attached to Heather and she hasn't even had a line so far and I Know she's going to die right away and I'm going to be so sad even though I built her whole character up all by myself and none of it is canon. Also, Robin and Heather probably won't even make eye contact much less be friends and definitely won't be gay together and I'm going to be very sad but meh I did this to myself. Also, who's willing to be that Troy won't even make an appearance this season? Me! That's also very sad. I'm so excited for this season though! I'm so excited and I will honestly probably be let down but still, I'm all jittery and I can't wait to watch it!!!  
> Thank you all so much for the kudos and comments!! They made me so happy and kept me going through the whole writing process. You all mean so much to me and your support really kept me going and gave me so much inspiration.  
> Please tell me what you thought about the final chapter! I know the last one was kind of the grand finale but I still wanna know if you guys liked this one too.  
> One last time, my Tumblr is burgundy-burgers and I'll be reblogging stuff about season 3 as soon as I watch it, so yeah.  
> Thank you all so so much for reading this, I hope you all have an amazing day and good luck watching season 3, oof. Thank you all!


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